Sichuan: Chinese President Xi Jinping urged all-out relief efforts to prioritise saving lives and minimising casualties after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake jolted Luding county in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province on Monday, killing at least 46 people and leaving 50 injured.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the instruction after the quake hit Luding county at 12:52 pm. The epicenter was monitored at 29.59 degrees north latitude and 102.08 degrees east longitude, at a depth of 16 kilometres in Luding county.
The tremor was felt obviously in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, which is about 220 kilometres from the epicenter. Residents in other neighbouring regions also felt it, according to the Sichuan Earthquake Administration.
The epicenter is about 40 kilometres away from the county seat of Luding, and there are several villages around the epicenter within a 5-kilometer range, with the average elevation reaching about 2,700 meters, according to media reports.
