KUNMING - At least 12 people were injured after a 5.6-magnitude earthquake jolted a county in southwest China early on Saturday morning, provincial authorities said.
The quake, which happened at 4:49 a.m. in Yingjiang County of Yunnan Province, had affected nearly 23,800 residents in seven towns and toppled and damaged 9,412 houses as of 11 a.m., according to local publicity officials.
The quake has also damaged two roads.
The epicenter was in Kachang Town of Yingjiang County, the Dai-Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture of Dehong, which is on a quake-prone belt. The epicenter was measured at 25.0 degrees north and 97.8 degrees east, at a depth of 12 km, the China Earthquake Networks Center said.
There had been 14 aftershocks by 7 a.m., the Yunnan provincial seismological bureau said.
Residents rushed out of their homes when the quake happened. Tiles fell from some roofs and there was a power blackout in the epicenter, said Tao Jiqing, Party secretary of the county.
The injured have been sent to a local hospital.
Quake-hit regions have set up three relocation sites for 8,465 displaced residents.
A total of 320 soldiers have been sent to the quake zone to help with disaster relief efforts. By midday, they had relocated more than 300 civilians.
Work teams from prefecture and county-level civil affairs authorities have already arrived at the zone, according to a statement from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
A work team from the ministry left Beijing on Saturday morning for the zone to assess the damage and offer assistance to local disaster relief personnel.
The provincial seismological bureau has dispatched a work team of 50 people to the region to carry out surveying, investigation and disaster evaluation work.
The Yunnan Provincial Civil Affairs Department has sent 1,600 tents, 2,000 quilts and 1,000 folding beds to quake-hit areas.
Yingjiang borders Myanmar. It has a population of 300,000.
Yunnan lies where the Eurasian Plate and Indian Plate meet and is prone to quakes.
