Rescuers in remote villages of northwest China dug through the rubble of collapsed homes today after China's deadliest earthquake in years killed at least 126 people and injured hundreds more.
State media said the shallow tremor just before midnight local time had caused the deaths of at least 113 and injured more than 530 in impoverished Gansu province,.
A further 13 died, 182 were injured and 20 were missing in Haidong in neighbouring Qinghai province, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The quake damaged more than 155,000 buildings, according to CCTV, and sent residents running into the freezing streets for safety.
Footage from CCTV showed family possessions strewn among masonry from a house that caved in during the shaking.
The quake was China's deadliest since at least 2014, when more than 600 people died in southwestern Yunnan province.
China's western hinterland carries the scars of frequent seismic activity, and a huge quake in Sichuan province in 2008 left more than 87,000 people dead or missing, including 5,335 schoolchildren.
The US Geological Survey said the magnitude-5.9 quake struck at a shallow depth with an epicentre around 100km from Gansu's provincial capital, Lanzhou.
China's state news agency Xinhua reported the magnitude as 6.2 and said the shaking was felt as far away as the major city of Xi'an, about 570km away.
Dozens of smaller aftershocks followed, and officials warned that tremors with a magnitude of more than 5.0 were possible in the next few days.
A quake measured at magnitude 5.2 by USGS was detected further northwest in the Xinjiang region this morning.
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for "all-out efforts" as search and rescue work got under way.
Temperatures are below freezing in the high-altitude area, and rescuers should be on guard for secondary disasters, he said, according to CCTV.
Provincial officials said at a press conference that nearly 5,000 homes had been damaged by the quake in Gansu.
Footage from one of the worst-hit places on CCTV showed residents warming themselves by a fire while emergency services set up tents.
CCTV said more than 1,400 firefighters and rescue personnel had been sent to the disaster zone, while another 1,600 remained "on standby".
The broadcaster said supplies including drinking water, blankets, stoves and instant noodles were also being sent to the area.
It added that the central government had preliminarily diverted 200 million yuan (€26 million) in relief funding to "guarantee the security of people's lives and property, and minimise the impact of losses from the disaster".
Earthquakes are not uncommon in China. In August, a shallow 5.4-magnitude earthquake struck the eastern part of the country, injuring 23 people and collapsing dozens of buildings.
In September 2022, a 6.6-magnitude quake hit Sichuan province leaving almost 100 dead.
And in 2010, a 6.9-magnitude quake in Qinghai left 3,000 people dead or missing.
