Strong quakes in southwest China kill 1, destroy 1,200 houses

Asian Economic News, July 28, 2008

BEIJING, July 24 Kyodo

Three earthquakes jolted southwest China's Sichuan Province on Thursday, destroying about 1,200 houses and leaving one person dead and 17 injured, official media reported.

The Xinhua News Agency report said three temblors with magnitudes measuring 5.6, 4.9 and 6.0 hit the juncture of Ningqiang County of Shaanxi Province and Qingchuan County of Sichuan Province early Thursday morning and in the afternoon.

In the Guangyuan area of Sichuan, a 60-year-old woman died of cerebral hemorrhage after she panicked during the strong quakes, while a 24-year-old man was seriously injured after jumping from a two-story building in a panic.

In the same area's hard-hit Qingchuan County, two people were injured while 1,160 houses collapsed and another 1,500 were damaged.

The death toll from the May 12 earthquake that jolted Sichuan and its neighboring regions stood at 69,197 as of Thursday, Xinhua reported. Another 18,209 people are listed as missing, it said.