A magnitude-5.8 earthquake shook Akqi County in Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture, located in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, at 12:14 p.m. Sunday (Beijing Time). Thankfully, local authorities have confirmed no casualties or collapsed structures as a result of the quake.
The epicenter was recorded at 41.15°N latitude and 78.41°E longitude, with a depth of 11 km. While the region around the epicenter is sparsely populated, the tremors were strongly felt in both Akqi and Wushi counties, situated 24 km and 68 km away from the epicenter respectively.
A resident in Akqi shared, \"The furniture in my house was visibly shaking, and I could feel the ground shaking when running into the yard. I feel a little scared after two consecutive days of earthquakes with magnitudes of more than 5.\"
State Grid Akqi Power Supply Company reported that the main grid and power distribution networks remain operational, and local train services have not been disrupted by the earthquake.
This latest quake follows a magnitude-7.1 earthquake that hit Wushi County and its surroundings on January 23, and a magnitude-5.3 tremor in Akqi County on Saturday morning. Gao Mengtan, an expert at the Institute of Geophysics of China Earthquake Administration, noted that aftershocks typically continue for one to several months after a major earthquake, with their frequency gradually decreasing over time.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
