Quake hits as landslide toll jumps

Three people were killed and dozens injured after a seven-magnitude earthquake struck along the mountainous China-Kyrgyzstan border yesterday.

The major quake was registered just after

2 am at a depth of 13 kilometers in Xinjiang, about 140 kilometers west of the city of Aksu.

Local authorities dispatched a team to the epicenter, while around 800 people were on standby for any large disaster relief mission.

CCTV said "12,426 people in the disaster area have been relocated."

The health ministry in Kazakhstan said that 44 people had sought medical help in Almaty, the country's largest city.

Images posted on social media and by local news outlets showed people streaming outside following the quake.

In China's Akqi county, six people suffered injuries - two of which were "serious."

A total of 47 buildings in the county collapsed, while a further 78 were damaged. Two houses and livestock sheds collapsed in the area near the epicenter in rural Wushi county, while electricity supply was temporarily knocked out.

TV channels in New Delhi reported strong tremors in the city, about 1,400 kilometers away.

One Aksu resident said people rushed outside despite temperatures hovering near minus 10 degrees Celsius.

Cao Yanglong, in the city on a business trip, said he felt like he was "going to be shaken out of bed" in his 21st-floor hotel room.

The quake came as the death toll from a landslide in Yunnan rose to 31 as rescue workers battled freezing temperatures and snow to locate dozens of missing people.

Rescuers worked through the night sifting deep mounds of earth at the site of the landslide in Zhenxiong County.

One rescuer said large machines cannot be used due to the unstable soil.

"If the excavation is unloaded below, the top may continue to collapse. It is difficult to carry out large-scale mechanical operations, and it is very difficult to rescue on site," the worker was quoted as saying in the report.

After the landslide hit on Monday, at least 47 people from 18 households were reported missing, CCTV said, adding that 25 of those people were now confirmed dead. Another 24 were still missing and three other people had been accounted for by the rescue team.

Another two people were hospitalized for head and body injuries.

The landslide hit two villages in the southwestern Zhaotong at 5.51 am, covering houses in brown mountain soil at the foot of a hill.

"The mountain just collapsed, dozens were buried," said a man, Gu, whose four relatives were buried. "They were all sleeping."

More than 500 people were evacuated.