Rescuers in remote villages of northwest China dug through the rubble of collapsed homes on Tuesday after China’s deadliest earthquake in years killed at least 118 people and injured hundreds more.

Officials in impoverished Gansu province said the shallow tremor just before midnight had caused the deaths of at least 105 and injured almost 400 as of Tuesday morning.

A further 13 died, 182 were injured and 20 were missing in the city of Haidong in neighbouring Qinghai province, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The quake damaged thousands of homes — many of them ramshackle brick structures — and sent residents running into the freezing streets for safety.

“I was almost scared to death. Look at how my hands and legs are shaking,” said a woman of about 30 in a video posted to a social media account associated with the state-run People’s Daily newspaper.

“As soon as I ran out of the house, the earth on the mountain gave way, thudding on the roof,” she said as she sat swaddled in a blanket outside, cradling a baby.

Footage from CCTV showed family possessions strewn among masonry from a house that caved in during the shaking.

The quake was China’s deadliest since at least 2014, when more than 600 people died in southwestern Yunnan province.

China’s western hinterland carries the scars of frequent seismic activity, and a huge quake in Sichuan province in 2008 left more than 87,000 people dead or missing, including 5,335 schoolchildren.

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