The death toll from China’s worst earthquake in nine years rose to 131 early Wednesday, with some 1,000 people injured, officials said.
Rescuers searched through rubble in below-freezing conditions in a mountainous region of northwestern China, but hope was rapidly fading that many people could be pulled out alive.
The magnitude-6.2 earthquake struck just before midnight on Monday in Jishishan county near the border of Gansu and Qinghai provinces, according to authorities.
It destroyed or damaged more than 150,000 homes, according to state media.
The earthquake, followed by several strong aftershocks, caused mud and landslides and damaged power lines and other local infrastructure “to varying degrees,” officials said.
On Wednesday morning, authorities said the official death toll had risen to 131 in Gansu, with 782 injured, and 18 dead and 198 wounded in Qinghai.
Responders, including 1,500 firefighters, 1,500 police officers, 1,000 soldiers, and about 400 medics, continued to pull people from the rubble and treat the injured, witnesses said.
Some 78 people had been rescued in Gansu, but 20 people were still missing from two villages in Minhe county, where a mudslide swept through, half-burying many buildings in brown silt.
Search and rescue operations and efforts to resettle residents continued as state media footage showed bulldozers removing thick mud.
Authorities hope they will find survivors. But a days-long cold wave sweeping across most of China and the high-altitude area in China’s north-west reported temperatures as low as -16 Celsius (3.2 Fahrenheit) were hampering rescue efforts.
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