DFA: No Pinoys hurt so far in deadly China quake

No Filipino has been reported to be among the casualties in a magnitude-7 quake that hit Sichuan province in China on Saturday, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said.
 
On Twitter, DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez said as of  Saturday noon, no Filipino in the area has been reported to be killed or injured in the quake.

Meanwhile, in a statement on Saturday, the DFA said "the earthquake hit Lushan County of Ya'an City and was strongly felt in Chengdu, Sichuan's capital."

"The quake was also felt in Guizhou, Gansu, Shaanxi, Yunnan and Chongqing," Hernandez said.

He added that the Philippine Consulate General in Chongqing "will continue to monitor developments."

Strong earthquake

A Reuters news agency report on Saturday said the strong 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit a remote, mostly rural and mountainous area of southwestern China's Sichuan province, killing at least 71 people and injuring about 2,200 close to where a big quake killed almost 70,000 people in 2008.

Sichuan is one of the four major natural-gas-producing provinces in China, and its output accounts for about 14 percent of the nation's total.

The earthquake occurred at 8.02 a.m. (0002 GMT) in Lushan county near Ya'an city and the epicentre had a depth of 12 km (7.5 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake was felt by residents in neighboring provinces and in the provincial capital of Chengdu, causing many people to rush out of buildings, according to accounts on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging service.

The official Xinhua news agency said 71 people had been confirmed dead with more than 2,200 injured, 147 of them seriously.

President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang said all efforts must be put into rescuing victims to limit the death toll. Li was on his way to Ya'an, state media said.

Ya'an is a city of 1.5 million people and is considered one of the birthplaces of Chinese tea culture. It is also the home to one of China's main centres for protecting the giant panda.

Most of the deaths were concentrated in Lushan, where water and electricity were cut off. Pictures on Chinese news sites showed toppled buildings and people in bloodied bandages being treated in tents outside the hospital, which appeared only lightly damaged.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially put the magnitude at 7, but later revised it down. The devastating May 2008 quake was 7.9 magnitude. - with a report from Ben Blanchard, Reuters, VVP, GMA News

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