Sep 5, 2008 / 09:19 am
UCA News agency reported this week that the Diocese of Xichang in the Chinese province of Sichuan is helping victims and assessing damage to Catholic buildings after a 6.1 magnitude earthquake hit the region on August 30.
UCA news reported that the epicenter of the August 30 earthquake “was where Panzhihua city and Huili county meet in southern Sichuan, near the border with Yunnan province.
The official China Earthquake Administration reported on September 1 that the Panzhihua-Huili earthquake had killed 36 people and injured another 506.
Xichang diocese, based in the city of the same name, 1,890 kilometers southwest of Beijing, covers the affected area.” Father John Lei Jiapei, diocesan administrator, told UCA News that parish priests at Panzhihua and Huili “have gone to remote rural areas to check on the situation of local Catholics.”