At least 400 are dead and 8,000 injured in the 7.1 magnitude quake in rural Yushu county in Qinghai province. The region is 12,000 feet in elevation and is a full day's drive from a major airport
By Barbara Demick
Reporting from Beijing
Chinese authorities raced against time, distance and wind in a remote corner of the Tibetan plateau as they tried to rescue victims from a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 400 people and injured more than 8,000 others.
The earthquake struck Wednesday morning in one of the most inaccessible reaches of China, Qinghai province's Yushu county. The 100,000 people in the area are mostly Tibetan, many of them making their living herding yaks and sheep.
Houses of mud and wooden beams gave way almost immediately when the tremor struck at 7:49 a.m. in the county seat of Jiegu. A series of aftershocks collapsed schools built of concrete and a pagoda in the main park.
The school collapses evoked painful memories of the Sichuan province earthquake of 2008 in which, by the official count, 5,335 children were crushed to death in their classrooms.
"Buildings in our school were all toppled, and five pupils have died," a teacher surnamed Chang at the Yushu Primary School, a boarding school with about 1,000 students, told the Xinhua news service. "Morning sessions did not begin when the quake happened. Some pupils ran out of dorms alive, and those who had not escaped in time were buried".
At a vocational school, troops sought to rescue 20 teachers and students still buried.
Logistical difficulties frustrated rescue crews. Phones lines and electricity were out and strong winds swept the plateau. Nearly 12,000 feet in elevation, Yushu is a full day's drive from the nearest major airport, in the provincial capital of Xining. A small airport nearby that opened last summer lacks fuel pumps and lost power and communications equipment in the quake.
"What we need most is teams with special skills for earthquake rescue, because we're mostly digging ourselves right now," Pubu Cairen, head of the county's emergency response, told CCTV in a telephone interview.
Restraining the emotion in his voice, he told the television reporter: "When I went back home to check, I found my house too had collapsed and my mother was killed".
"It is very difficult to save people with our bare hands," Shi Huajie told the Chinese television station.
As night fell, many of the Tibetans had fled the town and retreated to tents in the mountains, returning to a nomadic lifestyle they'd given up years before.
"People are sleeping in the mountains. They don't want to go back to their houses which are made of mud," said a 24-year-old student from Yushu, reached by telephone in Xining.
The student, who did not wish her name to be used, said that most of the victims were Tibetans, many of them older people who were still at home or sleeping when the earthquake hit.
"It was a very destructive earthquake," the student said. "We have never had such a strong one in Yushu".
People's Liberation Army troops garrisoned in Yushu secured banks, oil depots and caches of weapons and explosives shortly after the quake, CCTV reported, but there were no reports of looting or ethnic tension.
As with the Sichuan earthquake, the Chinese military looks likely to take a major role in the rescue work. The Air Force had ordered 1,500 airborne troops and 100 parachutists to assist in the quake zone.
Tommy Yang of The Times' Beijing bureau contributed to this report
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