Two moderate earthquakes struck separate regions of China on Tuesday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or serious damage in either area.
A 5.4-magnitude quake jolted a remote part of northwestern Xinjiang region while an earthquake measuring 5.5 hit the Sichuan-Gansu border area in the southwest, the US Geological Survey said on Tuesday.
The Xinjiang quake, which USGS revised down from an initial reading of 6.0, struck at 8.21am (12.21am GMT) around 96km east of the city of Yining, at a depth of 27km.
Xinjiang is a vast region with a population of around 20-million people, of which roughly nine million are Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking mainly Muslim ethnic minority.
An official at the Xinjiang earthquake bureau told AFP she had not received any reports of casualties.
A 5.2-magnitude earthquake struck the region in August, injuring at least 26 people, three of them critically, and destroying more than 30 residential buildings.
The quake in southwest China hit at 5:58am (9.58pm GMT) around 49km west northwest of Guangyuan in Sichuan province, a region devastated by an 8.0-magnitude earthquake in 2008.
An official in Qingchuan county, where the quake struck, said: “It is not very serious”.
Another official said the quake had cracked walls and dislodged roof tiles in mountain areas but there had been no reports of casualties or economic losses. — Sapa-AFP