Death toll rises in China quake

A strong earthquake struck a dry, hilly farming area in western China early Monday, killing scores of people people, injuring hundreds more, and destroying thousands of homes, state media and the local government said.

At least 75 people died in the quake, according to the Associated Press, but Chinese state-owned broadcaster CCTV reported at least 89 dead in the incident. An additional 5 people were missing, and 628 were injured.

Residents described shaking windows and swinging lights in communities where the quake hit, near the city of Dingxi in Gansu province, a hilly region of mountains, desert and pastureland about 766 miles west of Beijing.

Tremors were felt in the provincial capital of Lanzhou 110 miles north, and as far away as Xi'an, 250 miles to the east.

"You could see the chandeliers wobble and the windows vibrating and making noise, but there aren't any cracks in the walls," a front desk clerk at the Wuyang Hotel in the Zhang County seat, about 25 miles from the epicenter, told The Associated Press. "Shop assistants all poured out onto the streets when the shaking began."

The government's earthquake monitoring center said the initial quake at 7:45 a.m. local time was magnitude-6.6 and subsequent tremors included a magnitude-5.6.

The quake was shallow, which can be more destructive. The center said it struck about 12.4 miles beneath the surface, while the Gansu provincial earthquake administration said it was just 3.7 miles deep.

The deaths and injuries were reported in Min County and other rural southern parts of the municipality, Dingxi Mayor Tang Xiaoming told state broadcaster CCTV. Tang said damage was worst in the counties of Zhang and Min, where scores of homes were damaged and telephone and electricity services knocked out.

Su Wei, leader of a 120-member rescue team from the paramilitary People's Armed Police, told state broadcaster CCTV that they were on their way to the epicenter, but progress was being slowed by mud and rock slides blocking the road. Heavy rain is expected in the area later in the week, raising the need for shelter and increasing the chance of further landslides.

The Chinese Red Cross said it was shipping 200 tents, 1,000 sets of household items, and 2,000 jackets to the area, and sending teams from both Lanzhou and Beijing to help with relief work and assess further needs.

More than 1,200 homes were destroyed by the quake, with another 21,000 badly damaged, provincial government spokesman Chang Zhengguo was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

With a population of 26 million, Gansu is one of China's more lightly populated provinces, although the New Jersey-sized area of Dingxi has a greater concentration of farms in rolling hills terraced with fields for crops and fruit trees. Dingxi has a total population of about 2.7 million.

China's worst earthquake in recent years was a 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck the southwestern province of Sichuan in 2008, leaving 90,000 people dead or missing.

Al Jazeera and wire services