Earthquake in Xinjiang

last updated 8 January 2015

Jiashi, China

More than 250 people died this week and thousands were injured when a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck the northwest province of Xinjiang. The mountainous province, which borders Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, is home to the impoverished and persecuted Muslim minority of Uighurs. Survivors braved aftershocks and freezing weather to cover victims’ bodies immediately with white cloths, in accordance with local Muslim custom. Some 9,000 buildings were flattened. “The quality of the buildings in that area is quite bad,” said Song Lijun of the Xinjiang Seismological Bureau. “Because schools were among the destroyed buildings, we fear that children are among the dead.”