According to Chinese official media, late on Monday night, just before dawn, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck a remote mountainous area on the northern border of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The quake resulted in the deaths of at least 118 people, with hundreds more injured.

Following the earthquake, basic infrastructure and roads were destroyed, landslides occurred, and a village partially sank into a gorge. Authorities immediately conducted various emergency operations. Despite the challenging cold wave sweeping through most parts of China, a below-zero temperature rescue campaign is underway.

The tectonically active Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, located on the eastern border of the gas-rich western provinces, frequently experiences earthquakes. China’s most devastating earthquake in recent decades occurred in 2008 when an 8.0 magnitude quake hit Sichuan, claiming the lives of around 70,000 people.

According to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC), the latest earthquake occurred at 11:59 pm local time (1559 GMT on Monday) in the remote Gasu County, 10 km (6.2 miles) deep. The epicenter was 5 km from the border between Gasu and the neighboring Qinghai province, where strong tremors were also felt.

Regional officials reported in a press conference that by Tuesday morning at 7:50 am (2350 GMT Monday), 105 people had lost their lives in Gasu, and by 9:30 am, 397 were injured, with 16 in critical condition.

The death toll in Qinghai has risen to at least 13, and 182 people have been injured. Officially, 20 people are reported missing.

The Gasu provincial fire department, along with 2,200 personnel and 900 members of the forest brigade, dispatched 260 professional emergency rescue workers to the disaster area. Additionally, the military and police deployed hundreds of personnel.

The province allocated 20 million yuan ($2.8 million) to the local government for emergency response efforts, including the supply of 2,600 canvas tents, 10,400 folding beds, 10,400 quilts, 10,400 canvas mats, and 1,000 sets of stoves.

Gasu, one of China’s poorest provinces, with a population of around 260,000, is reported to be heavily dependent on the regional government due to resource scarcity.

Due to the high altitude and cold weather in the disaster area, efforts are being made to prevent secondary disasters beyond earthquakes caused by factors like avalanches.

Linxia, where the earthquake occurred in Gasu, experienced temperatures 14 degrees Celsius (6.8°F) below freezing on Tuesday morning.

While electricity is gradually being restored in the earthquake-affected areas after sending 18 emergency maintenance teams by the state grid, the situation remains challenging. Roads and rural roads have suffered damage, though there is no information on casualties.

State media footage showed rescue workers struggling amidst debris of collapsed buildings in Gasu village. In one severely affected house, loose bricks accumulated in the muddy street, while sturdy structures had walls intact but roofs collapsed.

In a video posted by the state-supported Da Paper, students in LanZhou University in the capital city of Gasu were seen walking in groups outside their dormitories, wearing down jackets, after the earthquake.

A major hydroelectric dam, 50 km away from the earthquake epicenter, remained unaffected. CCTV reported that the upper Yellow River dam is functioning normally.

In a village in Gasu, landslides occurred due to the earthquake, burying several homes under mud. Rescue workers are using drones, excavators, and bulldozers to search for and save survivors.

The earthquake tremors were felt up to 1,000 km away in Henan province, where local media outlets shared videos of furniture moving inside people’s homes.

CENC stated that by Tuesday morning, nine aftershocks with magnitudes of 3.0 or higher had been recorded, including two with magnitudes exceeding 4.0.

According to preliminary analysis, the earthquake was a powerful one, with a magnitude of over 6.0 within 200 km of the epicenter, the third such shock in three decades since 1900. The government media reported at least 32 shocks within an hour of the earthquake’s occurrence.

Gasu officials informed reporters that an earthquake with a magnitude of at least 5.0 occurred within 100 km of the epicenter less than 72 hours before the latest quake. CENC reported another earthquake on Tuesday at 9:46 am local time (0146 GMT) in the Xinjiang region, approximately 3,000 km away from Gasu, with a magnitude of around 5.5 and a depth of 10 km.