Strong earthquake shakes southwestern China

BEIJING—A strong, shallow earthquake shook southwestern China’s Yunnan province on Tuesday, sending people fleeing into the streets and causing some damage to buildings, officials and reports said.

The US Geological Survey said the earthquake measured magnitude 6.0 and was centered 18 kilometers (11 miles) from Weiyuan city at a depth of 10.1 kilometers (6.3 miles). Its shallow focus was likely to cause greater damage, but there were no immediate reports of serious destruction or injuries.

China’s national earthquake monitoring agency gave the quake’s magnitude as 6.6 and said it struck just 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) below the surface.

The official Xinhua News Agency said strong tremors were felt in the provincial capital, Kunming, about 360 kilometers (220 miles) to the northeast.

A state television reporter in the city of Pu’er, about 85 kilometers (53 miles) from the epicenter, said people fled buildings and were camping out in anticipation of aftershocks. The reporter, Wang Jian, said there was damage to structures and the local cellphone network, but had heard no reports of deaths or injuries.

The remote mountainous region near the border with Myanmar is prone to earthquakes. A 6.1-magnitude quake in northern Yunnan in August killed at least 615 people and left more than 100 others missing. In 1970, a magnitude-7.7 earthquake in Yunnan killed at least 15,000 people.