People trapped under rubble exposed to prolonged temperatures of -10 degrees Celsius run the risk of rapid hypothermia and may only be able to live for five to 10 hours even if uninjured, local media reported, citing researchers.
“They would have been dead by the time they were found, even 24 hours is already too long. Outdoor temperatures are below minus 10 C,” a user on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo commented.
Some users on Weibo considered other factors such as that the search area was not especially wide, and that people have been all accounted for, leading to rescue efforts ending in less than a day.
Many of the affected families are Hui people, an ethnic minority mostly found in western Chinese provinces and regions such as Gansu, Ningxia and Shaanxi.
Rescuers on Wednesday pulled to safety several victims of the earthquake, which jolted Jishishan county in Gansu a minute before midnight on Monday, sending many residents in the area out of homes into the cold in the dead of the night.
Survivors face uncertainty in the wintry months ahead without permanent shelter amid freezing temperatures.
Roads, power and water lines and agricultural production facilities have suffered damage, and the quake triggered land and mudslides that swept through villages in Qinghai’s Haidong where the missing were reported from.