At a university in Gansu’s capital, Lanzhou, about 180km away from the epicentre, students dressed in down jackets were seen lingering in groups outside their dormitory after the quake, a video posted by state-backed The Paper showed.
A major hydropower dam 50km from the epicentre was unaffected by the quake. CCTV reported that the dam, on the upper Yellow River, was operating normally.
In a village in Qinghai, the quake triggered a mudslide that left many houses half-covered in brown silt. Rescuers have deployed drones, excavators and bulldozers to find and rescue survivors, local media reported.
Tremors were felt as far as 1,000km away in central Henan province, where local media outlets shared videos of furniture swaying in people’s homes.
Woken up by the quake, residents left their buildings and drove to open areas for safety, local media outlet Jimu reported, showing a photo of people huddled in thick blankets outdoors.
Preliminary analysis shows that the quake was a thrust-type rupture, one of three above magnitude 6 to have struck within 200km of the epicentre since 1900, CCTV said. The state media reported at least 32 aftershocks in the hour after the quake hit.
Gansu officials told reporters that the last strong quake of at least magnitude 5.0 to hit within 100km of the epicentre was in 2019.
A total of nine aftershocks at magnitude 3.0 and above were recorded by Tuesday morning, two of which were at least 4.0 in magnitude, CENC said.
About 3,000km from Jishishan in Xinjiang region, another earthquake struck at 9.46am local time on Tuesday, with a magnitude of about 5.5 and at a depth of 10km, CENC said.