A huge earthquake shook the Ludian area near the city of Jiao Tong in the Yunnan province, the Peoples’ Republic of China. Yonhap news reported that there are probably over 400 villagers who have either been killed or currently missing, and the entire town has been destroyed with only the foundations remaining.
The earthquake started on August 3rd, and the Jiao Tong city government has announced that they estimate 398 people have been killed so far. In addition, over 1,800 residents are reported to be wounded and 200,000 of the whole 1 million local villagers have been evacuated from the surrounding areas. 25,000 homes have completely collapsed with the rest of the village totally unrecognizable.
Until around 2 pm of the day the earthquake started, around 451 large and small quakes are believed to have occurred. Even now, a quake with a scale of 4.2 is continuing to strike the area, and casualties are expected to rise even higher.
Meanwhile, the Chinese central government expanded its plans for rescue of Jiao Tong residents. Right after the first quakes started to strike Yunnan, the government declared level 3 emergency and alerted the rest of the nation.
At the same time, the Yunnan provincial government sent military personnel to help with the evacuation. The Chinese military or the Peoples’ Liberation Army announced that around 4,000 troops have been dispatched to Jiao Tong in Yunnan to carry out rescue operations. The government urged the military and other rescue experts to save as many lives as possible within the “golden time” or 72 hours.
Amongst the chaos happening in Yunnan province, Yonhap news also reported that China is also working to keep the Ebola virus which started in western Africa and already was the cause of death for hundreds of Africans from entering their country. China is deeply concerned with the situation because of their high population and also their past experience with the notorious SARS virus in 2002 and 2003.
