ALBAWABA - Local authorities reported that at least 50 people have been injured after a 7-magnitude earthquake jolted the mountainous China-Kyrgyzstan border on Tuesday.
Xinhua reported that rescue and emergency teams were dispatched to the earthquake epicenter, while around 800 people were on standby for any large disaster relief mission.
Kazakhstan's health ministry reported that 44 people suffering from "various" injuries sought medical attention in Almaty, the country's largest city. Following the earthquake, citizens were seen evacuating their homes, according to images posted on social media and local news outlets.
Six people were injured in China's Akqi County, two of whom were "serious" according to a Weibo post by a Xinjiang government media account. According to the post, 47 buildings in the county collapsed, and another 78 were damaged.
Video circulating on Chinese social media showed household appliances crashing to the floor as wild shaking rocked homes. More footage shared by state broadcaster CCTV showed firemen entering a damaged building with cracked walls and police helping an injured local.
According to an AFP reporter, people fled their homes to seek refuge in the streets of Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek after the quake shook walls and shifted furniture.
Bohobek Azhikeev, the head of the Kyrgyz Ministry for Emergency Situations, stated in a video message that "no casualties or damage have been registered" in the city.
According to Xinhua, five villages are within 20 kilometers of the epicentre, and a slew of small aftershocks with magnitudes as high as 5.5 occurred in the area. And on Tuesday morning the Kazakh seismological agency reported two new tremors of magnitude 5.2 and 5.3 around 10:00 local time (06:00 GMT) in the same area
