BEIJING – A major 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck along the mountainous China-Kyrgyzstan border on Jan 22.

It triggered warnings of potentially widespread damage, though no casualties have been reported.

Local authorities dispatched a team to the quake’s epicentre, said Xinhua news agency, while some 800 people were on standby for any large disaster relief mission.

The quake was registered just after 2am local time at a depth of 13km in China’s Xinjiang region, some 140km west of Aksu city, where Chinese media reported heavy tremors were felt.

Two houses and livestock sheds collapsed in the area near the epicentre, in rural Wushi County, Xinhua reported, while electricity was temporarily knocked out.

Local TV channels in the Indian capital New Delhi reported strong tremors in the city, about 1,400km away.

One Aksu resident told Xinhua that people rushed outside for safety amid the shaking, despite frigid early morning temperatures hovering around minus 10 deg C.

Mr Cao Yanglong, who is in the city on a business trip, told the state news agency that while on the 21st floor of a hotel, he felt like he was “going to be shaken out of bed”.

People also fled their homes to seek refuge on the streets in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek, according to an AFP reporter, after the quake caused walls to shake and furniture to shift.

Mr Boobek Ajikeev, head of the Kyrgyz Ministry for Emergency Situations, said in a video message that “no casualties or damage have been registered in the city of Bishkek”.

Aftershocks

Five villages are located within 20km of the epicentre, according to Xinhua, and a slew of small earthquakes followed in the area, with magnitudes of as high as 5.5.

“Extensive damage is probable,” its report said.

The authorities in Kazakhstan also reported tremors, though without any casualties or major destruction confirmed so far.

In Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, citizens streamed outside following the quake, according to images posted on social media and by local news outlets.

The earthquake came the day after a landslide buried dozens of people and killed at least eight in south-west China.

A quake in December in the north-west of the country killed 148 people and displaced thousands in Gansu province.

That temblor was China’s deadliest since 2014, when more than 600 people were killed in south-western Yunnan province.

In the December quake, sub-zero temperatures made the aid operation launched in response even more challenging, with survivors huddled around outdoor fires to keep warm. AFP