China quake kills 175

A strong earthquake jolted southern China’s Yunnan province on Sunday, toppling thousands of homes and killing at least 175 people. 

The magnitude-6.1 quake struck at 4:30 p.m. at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), according to the US Geological Survey. Its epicenter was in Longtoushan township, 23 kilometers (14 miles) southwest of the city of Zhaotong, the Ludian county seat.

China’s official Xinhua news agency said at least 150 people were killed in the quake. Ma Liya, a resident of Zhaotong, told Xinhua that the streets there were like ‘battlefield after bombardment’. She added that her neighbour’s house, a new two-story building, had toppled.

At least 120 of the dead were in densely populated Ludian county, with another 180 missing and 1,300 people injured there, Yunnan’s information bureau reported. The province’s seismological bureau said another 24 people died and more than 100 were injured in Qiaojia county.

Xinhua said about 12,000 homes were toppled in Ludian, a county of 429,000 people located around 366 kilometers (277 miles) northeast of Yunnan province’s capital, Kunming. Chen Guoyong, the head of Longtoushan township, told Xinhua that many houses there had collapsed.