At least four dead, over 100 injured in SW China quake

KUNMING - Four people have been confirmed dead and over 100 people injured after a 5.7-magnitude earthquake jolted southwest China on Sunday, local authorities said.

Three residents have been reported dead in the county of Ninglang in Yunnan province and another one in the neighboring Yanyuan county in Sichuan province.

As of 11:30 p.m. Sunday, 102 people have been found injured due the quake in Yunnan. And 20 among them were in serious conditions, according to the Langcang county government.

Two villagers in Yanyuan have been also been found injured in the quake.

The quake was strongly felt in Ninglang, and local authorities have sent rescuers and 1,100 tents, 3,000 quilts and 2,000 cotton-padded clothes to the the quake-stricken area.

The quake happened on one of the regions in Yunnan with high frequency of destructive earthquakes, said Zhang Jianguo, director with the quakeproof institute with the Yunnan provincial seismological bureau.

It was a tectonical earthquake with a complicated geological structure in its epicenter area, which had several faulted structures extending to various directions, he said.

Telecommunications networks and power supply were affected by the quake in some regions of the quake-hit area.

The Yunnan Provincial Seismological Bureau has dispatched a working team to the area to calculate the losses.

The 5.7-magnitude quake struck the border of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces at 3:59 p.m. Sunday, followed by a 3.3-magnitude aftershock two minutes later, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center.

The epicenter was located at the border area between Ninglang and Yanyuan, where the Yi ethnic group live.

A spokesman with the Yanyuan county government told Xinhua that the quake was not strongly felt in the county seat, but many houses in the countryside collapsed.

Light to moderate rain will hit the quake-affected Ninglang county through the coming week, and rainfalls would be concentrated from June 30 to July 1, said Pu Guiming, chief weather forecaster with the Yunnan provincial meteorological station.

Rescue teams are urged to conduct the relief work in accordance with the weather conditions.