At Least 4 People Dead in Earthquakes in Southwestern China

A map showing the location of an earthquake of magnitude 6.1 that struck the southwestern Chinese Province of Sichuan, China, on June 1, 2022. (USGS/screenshot via The Epoch Times)

BEIJING—Two earthquakes killed at least four people and damaged houses in southwestern China on Wednesday, authorities and state media said.

Fourteen others were injured, state broadcaster CCTV said in an online report. All of the dead and injured were in Baoxing county in Sichuan province.

A magnitude 6.1 quake struck at a depth of 17 kilometers (10 miles) in Ya‘an city, about 110 kilometers (65 miles) southwest of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, the China Earthquake Network Center said. A magnitude 4.5 quake, also in Ya’an, followed three minutes later, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.

The number of fatalities and the injured rose steadily during the day on Wednesday. By 7 p.m. local time, Baoxing authorities said at least one suffered grievous injuries, according to CCTV.

However, the actual number of casualties is difficult to verify, as the Chinese regime has a record of suppressing information that it deems harmful to its image.

The Sichuan fire department said some houses were damaged. The Southwest Railway Authority said some sections of track were closed, causing delays to passenger trains.

Provincial officials claimed on state-run media that the Ya'an city earthquake was an aftershock of a magnitude 7.0 quake in 2013 that killed at least 196 people.