A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit southwestern China and left at least 65 dead

The quake of magnitude 6.6 struck Sichuan province in China at a depth of 6 miles. Local media reports that the impact led to breakage of telecommunication lines and triggered mountain landslides. These resulted to "serious damage." The quake left 65 people dead. Incidentally, last week the authorities had asked millions of people in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, to stay at home because of COVID rules. The epicentre of the quake was at Luding. This is a town located about 140 miles (226 Km) in a remote mountain region southwest of Chengdu. The China Earthquake Networks Centre has reported this. The city of Ya'an reports death of 17 people and neighboring prefecture of Ganzi reports 29 deaths. In addition, there were reports of another 16 people missing and 50 injured. The tremors shook buildings in Chengdu and the neighboring mega-city of Chongqing. There was blockage of roads and disruption of communication lines to hundreds of thousands of residents. China quake: Deadly tremor rocks Sichuan city in lockdown. The shocks led to the shut down of a number of power stations in the areas of Garze and Ya'an,

The authorities moved hundreds of rescue personnel to the epicenter and workers tried to remove the roadblocks caused by landslides. Residents of Chengdu saw people trying to vacate their high-rise apartments after receiving alerts of earthquake on their phones. Chengdu became the latest city to be locked down by Chinese authorities, in an attempt to stem the rise in COVID cases. This quake comes several months after a 6.1-magnitude earthquake tore through Sichuan in June. Sichuan lies along the eastern boundary of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau and is an earthquake-prone area. The earthquake brings into memory an 8.0-magnitude quake, which hit Wenchuan County in northwest Sichuan in 2008. It had left 70,000 dead and led to large-scale destruction.

First time air travelers are problems for the Chinese

Two recent incidents of the level of ignorance of first-time air travelers have come to light from China and have got the authorities worried.
A middle-aged man was on board a Chinese domestic Xiamen Air flight from Hangzhou to Chengdu, and he gave rise to panic when he opened the emergency exit just before take-off because he 'wanted some fresh air.'
During questioning, he admitted that he was a first-time flyer and was unaware that his actions could be deemed a serious breach. Fortunately, the cabin crew managed to handle the situation quickly and the flight took off on time. This is the latest incident to mar China flights because, only a couple of days earlier, another Chinese man had opened the emergency exit and deployed the slide – it seems he wanted to 'get off quicker' from his China Eastern flight MU2331 that had landed at Sanya Fenghaung International Airport in Hainan.
Incidentally, by activating the emergency exit, he deployed the emergency slide – and, this incident led to an almost two-hour delay to the flight.
When questioned about why he had broken the rules, he replied that he had 'wanted to get off the plane quicker.' He also admitted that he had not listened to the in-flight instructions and that he was not aware that the emergency exit cannot be used to disembark.