The 7.1 quake struck around 33km below the surface in Yushu county, Qinghai province this morning At least 67 people are dead and many more trapped in rubble after a massive 7.1 quake hit north west China early today, officials have reported.

Chinese state television said the tremor, which struck around 33km below the surface, was one of six to hit Yushu county, Qinghai province this morning.

Army trucks are speeding to the remote area, 800 km away from the provincial capital Xining, to aid rescue and relief efforts.

Witnesses reported the collapse of many brick and wood buildings. Some early reports suggested many larger buildings had stood firm. But the population is relatively scattered making it hard to assess damage.

The main quake sent residents fleeing as it toppled houses made of mud and wood, said Karsum Nyima, the Yushu county television station’s deputy head of news, speaking by phone with broadcaster CCTV.

“In a flash, the houses went down. It was a terrible earthquake,” he said. “In a small park, there is a Buddhist tower and the top of the tower fell off.

“Everybody is out on the streets, standing in front of their houses, trying to find their family members,” he said, adding that school buildings had not collapsed but that students had been evacuated and were assembled in outdoor playgrounds.

Yushu county is a largely Tibetan area of Qinghai. The province and other parts of China’s north west have suffered repeated tremors in recent years.

A local government website put the county’s population in 2005 at 89,300, a community of mostly herders and farmers. Rescue efforts were hindered by telecommunications problems, with phone lines down, the notice said.

State television showed footage of paramilitary police using shovels to dig around a house with a collapsed wooden roof. A local military official, Shi Huajie, told state broadcaster CCTV rescuers were working with limited equipment.

“The difficulty we face is that we don’t have any excavators. Many of the people have been buried and our soldiers are trying to pull them out with human labor,” Shi said. “It is very difficult to save people with our bare hands.”

Wu Yong, a local military chief, said medical workers were also urgently needed but that roads leading to the airport had been badly damaged by the quake, creating difficulties for people and supplies to be flown in.

The epicentre of the first quake was located 235 miles south-southeast of Golmud, a large city in Qinghai, at a depth of six miles, the US Geological Survey said.

Ten minutes later, the area was hit by a magnitude 5.3 quake, which was followed after two minutes by a temblor measuring 5.2. Both the subsequent earthquakes were measured at a depth of 6 miles. Another quake, measuring 5.8, was recorded at 9:25am.

Two years ago a massive quake in nearby Sichuan left an estimated 90,000 dead or missing.

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