Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) At least 11 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in an earthquake in Jiangxi province, eastern China, measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale. The epicenter of the tremor, registered at 8.49 local time, was localized near the cities of Jiujiang and Ruichang; 35 minutes later, there were another two tremors with a magnitude of 5.7 and 4.1 respectively, according to the national Seismological Bureau.
Official sources report six people killed and 247 wounded in Jiujiang, where 8,000 buildings collapsed. The provisional, official toll of the quake in Ruichang, meanwhile, is of five dead and 39 wounded, however the victims and damages in rural areas have not been reported as yet. According to the news agency Xinhua, in this city, 420,000 people fled their homes for fear of further tremors.
The tremor was felt in Wuhan too, in the province of Hubei, an industrial city on the Yangtze River some 100km away from the epicenter.
