NU Online News Service, April 14, 4:04 p.m. EDT
A 6.9 magnitude earthquake has claimed hundreds of lives in the Qinghai province of China, but there will be little impact on insurers, judging by past quake losses in that country.
Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide in Boston said most of the buildings in the region are unlikely to be insured and the catastrophe modeler expects no significant insured losses.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported the 6.9 quake struck the province at 7:49 a.m. local time, 7:49 p.m. EDT, affecting a remote region in the Tibetan region of China.
China's news service, Xinhua News Agency, reported 400 dead and 10,000 injured, but both figures were expected to rise as rescue workers comb the rubble.
The news agency was reporting that local authorities said the quake registered 7.1 magnitude.
Catastrophe modeler Risk Management Solutions said the magnitude of the quake "would be expected to cause very heavy damage to both resistant and vulnerable structures."
RMS said the region where the earthquake struck is high-altitude and sparsely populated, with farming and herding the primary activities. Most structures in the region are adobe, unreinforced brick or wood construction. The China Earthquake Administration has reported extensive damage to homes in the region.
Xinhua reported that the Chinese government has allocated 200 million yuan (U.S. $29.3 million) for disaster relief in the province.
AIR noted that the quake was a shallow event, only 6.2 miles deep, and that there have been numerous aftershocks since the event took place.
Guy Carpenter released one of its Catastrophe Information reports and noted that in 2008, a 7.9 earthquake hit neighboring Sichuan Province, leaving 87,000 people dead or missing. Estimates at the time of that earthquake suggested five million buildings were destroyed, causing an economic loss of around $120 billion and insured losses of more than $300 million.
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