Guangxi quake kills two and collapses buildings in Liuzhou

A magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck Liuzhou in China’s Guangxi region before dawn on Monday, killing at least two people, collapsing 13 buildings and forcing more than 7,000 residents to evacuate, according to Reuters and Chinese state media. Tremors reached Hong Kong, roughly 550 km east of the epicentre.

The quake hit at 1:17 a.m. at a depth of about 10 km, the China Earthquake Networks Center said. Local authorities later said one person remained missing and four people were in hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. The jolt struck while most residents were asleep. Rescue crews spent the first hours pulling people from damaged buildings, clearing debris from streets and moving families into open areas.

The Liuzhou earthquake relief headquarters said emergency responses were activated after the collapses. Global Times reported 13 buildings down and more than 7,000 people evacuated by early Monday. The toll was high for a 5.2-magnitude event — a shallow tremor that struck an urban area while most people were asleep.

Early casualty figures shifted as the morning unfolded. The South China Morning Post reported at about 4 a.m. that four people had been hospitalised and three were listed as missing. Later updates from Reuters and Global Times put the missing count at one, as local officials moved from witness accounts to confirmed rescue tallies.

A resident identified only as Liu told Global Times the shaking was strong enough to send people running from their apartments. “I saw the fan still shaking, got dressed and rushed downstairs right away,” Liu said. For many in Liuzhou the predawn minutes were the same: seconds of strong shaking, then dark stairwells, then anxious waiting for word on neighbours and damaged blocks.

By daybreak rescue crews were checking collapsed sites for anyone still trapped. Hospitals monitored the injured. Local officials tried to determine whether damaged buildings had displaced more residents than the first evacuation count showed. With one person still missing, the operation remained a live search.

Tremors felt in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Observatory received more than 10 reports from residents who felt the tremor for a few seconds. The agency put local intensity at II on the Modified Mercalli scale — weak but noticeable indoors. In Hong Kong the quake passed in seconds. Across the border in Guangxi, it triggered a full emergency response that was still unfolding by mid-morning.

The observatory placed the epicentre about 550 km west-northwest of Hong Kong. The shock travelled far enough to register in one of Asia’s most densely populated financial centres while the worst damage stayed around Liuzhou.

A shallow overnight tremor can do serious damage when buildings fail quickly and people have little time to react. In Liuzhou, the collapse count — 13 buildings — made that the central problem for Monday’s rescue teams. The toll may shift as crews work through collapsed structures and authorities verify conditions site by site. For now, two are dead, one is missing and thousands are displaced by a predawn tremor whose reach stretched from a city in Guangxi to apartment towers in Hong Kong.