A magnitude-5.7 earthquake shook southwest China on Monday in the early morning hours. Four people are reported dead and more than 100 were injured.
The earthquake hit at 2 a.m. in the border area of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, affecting 14 Lijiang City townships. Over four thousand households and 21,860 people have been impacted, according to Xinhua, China’s state-run mouthpiece news agency.
Lijiang Mayor Huo Lianghuei said seven tourists are among the victims and many transportation and hydraulic infrastructure systems have been destroyed or damaged by the quake.
The depth of the earthquake’s epicenter was quite shallow, only 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) below the surface, but due to the low population density in the area, the damage to buildings and the number of deaths were relatively low.
Chen Qin, deputy director of the Yunnan Seismological Bureau, said his agency counted 53 aftershocks, with the highest measuring magnitude-3.8.
According to information gathered by the U.S. Geological Research Institute (USGS), the quake measured 5.5 magnitude on the Richter scale at a depth of 9.3 kilometers (5.8 miles).
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