6.9 Quake in China Kills 109

BEIJING — A powerful earthquake Thursday evening killed at least 109 people and damaged more than 1,000 homes in a remote region of central China populated mainly by Tibetan herders, officials said today.

The quake, recorded at a magnitude of 6.9, struck Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai province, about 900 miles southwest of Beijing, the State Seismology Bureau said.

A bureau official, who did not give his name, said 109 people were killed and 120 were hospitalized in the sparsely populated, rugged area. The initial quake was followed by hundreds of aftershocks, he said.

Aftershocks up to a magnitude of 5 were felt in the provincial capital of Xining, about 70 miles northeast of Hainan prefecture, and in Lanzhou, a city 180 miles to the east.

Qinghai is a mountainous region, inhabited by miners and herders, where quakes occur fairly frequently with few casualties. A quake measuring 6.7 struck the region in January, damaging some buildings but causing no casualties.