china is have a tough year, tectonically speaking.
China Rocked by 6.1 Magnitude Earthquake
BEIJING, Aug. 31 -- It was a familiar scene: Rescue teams headed into an earthquake zone Sunday to help frightened farmers deal with hundreds of aftershocks and a shortage of tents.
Less than a week after the close of the Olympic Games, which brought mostly good news to China's government, officials struggled with the aftermath of a 6.1 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 27 people and injured hundreds Saturday.
The official New China News Agency said it was unclear how many more people were buried in rubble near the epicenter of the quake, about 30 miles southeast of Panzhihua, a city in southern Sichuan province.
The temblor destroyed nearly 400 houses in Panzhihua and 1,000 in neighboring Liangshan, the China Earthquake Administration said on its Web site.
"All the houses in our village have nearly collapsed, and right now we are risking our lives to bring our belongings out of our homes," said Xiong Mei, a farmer from Nanhai village in Liangshan prefecture, who spent the rainy night in the courtyard of her partially destroyed home.
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