At least 13 individuals were killed in southwestern China by a 6.6 magnitude earthquake.
The earthquake struck Sichuan Province at 13:00 local time (05:00 GMT) at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles).
According to local media, the impact damaged telecommunications lines and sparked mountain landslides that caused “major damage.”
Because of COVID regulations, around 21 million people in Sichuan’s capital Chengdu were previously instructed to stay at home.
According to the China Earthquake Networks Centre, the center of the quake was in Luding, a village in a remote mountain region about 226 kilometers southwest of Chengdu.
According to CCTV, tremors shook buildings in Chengdu and the neighboring megacity of Chongqing, closing roads and cutting telecommunications lines in areas home to more than 10,000 people.
According to the Chinese broadcaster, the shocks also forced the shutdown of some power plants in the Garze and Ya’an areas.
According to state broadcaster CGTN, more than 500 rescue personnel have been dispatched to the epicenter, and workers are working to clear roadblocks caused by landslides.
Residents in Chengdu reported seeing people fleeing their high-rise apartments in a panic after receiving earthquake alerts on their phones.
“There were many people who were so terrified that they started crying,” Laura Luo, an international public relations consultant, told Reuters.
“All the dogs began barking when the shaking began. It was quite frightening.”
“Some of my neighbors on the ground floor said they felt it very noticeably,” Chen, a Chengdu resident, told the AFP news agency.
“Some of my ground-floor neighbors stated they felt it noticeably,” Chen, a Chengdu resident, told the AFP news agency.
“However, because Chengdu is currently under epidemic control, residents are not permitted to leave their residential compounds, therefore many of them raced out into their courtyards.”
On Friday, Chinese officials sealed off the city of Chengdu in an attempt to halt the rise in Covid cases.
The latest calamity occurred months after a 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan in June. Sichuan is an earthquake-prone region due to its location on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau.
The latest disaster also brought to mind an 8.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Wenchuan county in northwest Sichuan in 2008, killing 70,000 people.
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