Chinese state media announced on Tuesday that a 6.2 magnitude, shallow-depth earthquake, struck Gansu and Qinghai provinces, just prior to midnight on Monday.
According to the Xinhua News Agency, the seismic event resulted in the deaths of at least 131 persons and approximately 900 injuries. More than 15,000 homes have been reported to be damaged.
Complicating the rescue attempts has been the freezing winter weather which was reported to be 5 Fahrenheit (-15 degrees Celsius). Over the next several days, forecasts suggest that the temperature could fall to as low as -2.2 Fahrenheit (-19 degrees Celsius).
The Gansu Provincial Seismological Bureau warned that aftershocks as high as magnitude 5.0 were still possible to occur. As of Wednesday, two additional 4.0 tremors were confirmed in the area by the China Earthquake Networks Center.
The region of China where the incident occurred is known to be very seismologically active, as it is located at the adjoining Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.
The death toll is the highest since an August 2014 quake that killed more than 600 people in Yunnan province.
