By December 24, 2023, the death toll from the magnitude 6.2 earthquake that rocked parts of Northwest China’s Gansu and Qinghai provinces on December 18, 2023, rose to at least 149, according to Chinese media reports.
Gansu bore the brunt of the shallow quake that hit around midnight, with 117 people killed and 781 injured. In Qinghai, 32 died and two were still missing, with 198 injured. An extreme cold wave also hampered rescue efforts.
Gansu’s Jishishan County, at the quake’s epicenter, is home to 22 chemical plants and over 200 large enterprises, although no casualties were reported at these sites.
However, the temblor damaged 207,204 houses in Gansu, with 15,000 collapsed, affecting some 37,000 households. Authorities issued evacuation orders for residents in and around impacted mountain areas and coal mines.
More than 4,500 rescue personnel were dispatched to earthquake-hit areas and the government, by the end of 2023, has allocated a total of 1.1 billion yuan (US$153.5m) to assist with post-disaster repair and construction.
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