According to the latest news from local emergency services, at least 19 people were killed and 343 injured, after a magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck Jiuzhaigou County in southwestern China's Sichuan Province late Tuesday.
Eight victims were tourists and 40 injured are in a critical condition.
At present, rescue efforts and evacuation are being pushed in the quake-stricken area.
Rescuers are racing against time to help locate the trapped local villagers in a vast and remote area close to the epicenter.
They are firefighters and armed police from Sichuan and the neighboring provinces, like Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai, as well as Tibet Autonomous Region. They are assigned with different tasks by the command center in town.
A local team of firefighters received a task of finding over 20 villagers who sent out SOS message with their mobile phones after midday. The search went on for hours in rugged mountains. The trapped locals were found by this team, and evacuated to safer places.
More efforts are made around the epicenter in Jiuzhaigou.
Over 60,000 tourists and locals have been evacuated since the earthquake happened on Tuesday night, and the police are arranging buses for the remaining people to leave.
A traveller and her friends expressed their satisfaction with the measures taken by the local government, and appraised volunteers for sending them food, water and towels.
Sprinkles came in the afternoon on Wednesday, and some locals chose to put up tents with the help from rescuers, and they also wanted to stay in an open and safe area to monitor their homes, shops and restaurants.
According to seismologists, in the following days, there are chances of a magnitude-6.0 aftershock.
