Beijing, Apr 14: A powerful earthquake today devastated China’s remote northwestern province of Qinghai killing 400 people as it toppled houses, created cracks in dams and left 10,000 injured, officials said.
 The earthquake measuring 7.1-magnitude on Richter scale hit the province in the Qinghai Tibetan plateau early this morning almost flattening Jiegu township, where more than 85 per cent of the houses collapsed.
 Indian embassy in Beijing said that they have not received reports of any casualty of Indian nationals.
 Paramilitary and rescue workers were working with t their hands to remove the rubble to save the people buried under it. TV footage said that all access roads to the region had been damaged and even the airport cut off.
 This quake comes less than two years after a magnitude 7.9 quake hit the neighbouring Sichuan province which left 90,000 people dead.
 The workers were working hard to release from a reservoir on the town’s outskirts where cracks had been formed. Among the casualties were school children, who were buried under the debris of the building.
 The quake also killed five people and injured one another in the Shiqu County, which neighbours Yushu, in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze in Sichuan Province, local authorities said.
 The epicentre of the quake is at the Rima Village in the Shanglaxiu Township, about 50 km west of Gyegu and about 800 km away from Xining, the Qinghai provincial capital.
 “The epicentre is a pasturing area and sparsely- populated. I think the quake would not cause casualties as heavy as those in Jiegu,” Zhuohuaxia said.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 14 Apr 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 14 Apr 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:00:00 IST