China’s earth­quake – update
A day after a strong earth­quake hit south­west China’s Sichuan province the death toll stood at least 156 with many more injured and with­out homes.
Fan Bin BA1RB report­ed that it was a 7.0 mag­ni­tude quake in Ya’an city, Sichuan province with its epi­cen­tre near Lushan County. 

The Sichuan ama­teur radio asso­ci­a­tion took imme­di­ate action with BD8DX and BD8AAA lead­ing a team head­ing to the dis­as­ter area pro­vid­ing emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion services.
A request is made to keep the HF fre­quen­cies of 3855kHz, 7050kHz and 14270kHz clear for dis­as­ter traffic.
Fan Bin BA1RB said that the local ama­teur radio repeater works fine, and is pro­vid­ing emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion for the pub­lic. BG8FUW in Lushan Coun­ty, BG8EYD in Ya’an city to help pro­vide ama­teur radio emer­gency communication. 

Some ama­teur radio oper­a­tors are lis­ten­ing on HF while oth­ers have gone to help out in the dis­as­ter area.
Sat­ur­day morn­ing’s earth­quake, last­ing a minute, caused land­slides and dis­rupt­ed phone and pow­er con­nec­tions in the moun­tain­ous Lushan coun­ty five region. The quake’s shal­low depth, less than 13 kms, is like­ly to have mag­ni­fied its impact. There have been aftershocks.
Thou­sands of homes were destroyed when the quake struck in a rur­al area on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. A mas­sive earth­quake in the same region in 2008 killed 87,000.
The Chi­na Earth­quake Admin­is­tra­tion said at least 156 peo­ple had died, includ­ing 96 in Lushan, with more than 5,500 peo­ple injured.
Chi­na Pre­mier Li Keqiang flew to Ya’an to direct res­cue efforts. The Chi­nese Red Cross said it had relief teams in the area with sup­plies of food, water, med­i­cine and res­cue equip­ment to the dis­as­ter areas.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man of the IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee with help of Fan Bin BA1RB.