BEIJING (AP) – The death toll in this week’s earthquake in western China has jumped to 74 with another 26 people still missing, the government reported yesterday.
The 6.8-magnitude quake that struct just after noon on Monday in Sichuan province caused extensive damage to homes in the Ganze Tibetan Autonomous Region and shook buildings in the provincial capital of Chengdu.
Following the quake, police and health workers refused to allow anxious residents of apartment buildings out. Monday’s quake was centred in a mountainous area of Luding county, roughly 200 kilometres from Chengdu, where tectonic plates grind up against each other.
