Braving sub-zero conditions, thousands of rescuers faced an uphill task on Wednesday finding and treating survivors of a strong earthquake that rocked a remote area in China's northwestern Gansu province just before midnight on Monday.The magnitude-6.2 earthquake jolted Jishishan county near the border straddling Gansu and Qinghai provinces, sending frightened residents out of homes into the cold in the dead of the night.It damaged roads and power and water lines, destroyed over 150,000 homes, and triggered landslides and mudslides, Reuters reported.Emergency responses have been activated, with various departments sending thousands of personnel into the mountainous disaster zone to look for survivors and resettle them.Recovery from Monday night's earthquake has been further challenged by the powerful cold snap that has gripped most of China since last week.
Temperatures around the quake epicenter in Gansu fell to around minus 15 degrees Celsius on Tuesday night as rescuers continued their work.According to local media citing researchers, people trapped under rubble exposed to minus 10 C conditions without help run the risk of developing hypothermia and could only stay alive for between five and 10 hours if uninjured.In Gansu, 113 people had been found dead as of 9:00 a.m.
on Wednesday, and 782 were injured, authorities said.The death toll in Qinghai rose to 18 with 198 injured as of 5:30 a.m.
on Wednesday.Seventy-eight people have been rescued in Gansu, CCTV said.The post Chinese rescuers brave freezing cold to find earthquake survivors first appeared on Ariana News.