A rescue team consisting of 30 experts has been dispatched to
the quake-hit area in the Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region in north China by the China
Seismological Bureau Saturday night.
Some injuries had been reported by midnight Saturday but
accurate figures were still not available by press time. A number
of houses had been found collapsed in the quake-hit area, according
to the bureau.
The quake, measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale, occurred at 6:58
p.m. (Beijing Time) Saturday, in an area between Bairin Zuoqi and
Ar Horqin qi, east Inner Mongolia.
The epicenter was at latitude 43.9 degrees north and longitude
119.7 degrees, about 500 kilometers northeast of Beijing. Obvious
tremor was felt in Beijing and parts of Hebei and Jilin
provinces.
The China Seismoligical Bureau and local governments were
striving to collect further information and estimating the damage,
said Hu Chunfeng, deputy director of the general office of the
bureau.
China is a quake-active country. Hu said that this year,
earthquakes are more likely to occur than last year on the
mainland.
The area around Beijing, including Hebei and Inner Mongolia, has
been closely monitored by seismological authorities. More than100
million yuan were spent on improving the monitoring network in the
area during 1996-2000, Hu said.
(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2003)