Quake strikes in remote part of China's Sichuan province

An earthquake measuring 6.5 in magnitude struck China's remote and mountainous southwestern province of Sichuan today, the US Geological Survey said, causing some damage to buildings in a tourist resort but no immediate reports of mass casualties.

The quake struck in a sparsely populated area 200 km (120 miles) west-northwest of the city of Guangyuan at a depth of 10 km (6 miles), the USGS said. It had earlier put the quake at magnitude 6.6 and 32 km deep.

The Sichuan earthquake administration said the epicentre of the tremor was in Ngawa prefecture, largely populated by ethnic Tibetans, many of whom are nomadic herders, but also close to the Jiuzhaigou nature reserve, a popular tourist destination.

The area is frequently struck by earthquakes.

Pictures on state media-run social media sites showed some damage in Jiuzhaigou, with tiles having fallen from buildings and people gathering outdoors.

State television cited a resident in a village near Jiuzhaigou as saying no buildings had collapsed where he was, but that there had been strong shaking and people had fled outdoors.

A police official told state television that there had been some panic among the tourists when the quake hit, but that there had so far been no reports of serious injuries or deaths.

The official Xinhua news agency quoted a Jiuzhaigou tourism official as saying that some houses had collapsed or cracked and authorities were organising evacuations.

Shaking was felt in the provincial capital Chengdu and as far away as Xian, home of the Terracotta Warriors, according to users of Chinese social media.

A quake in Sichuan in May 2008 killed almost 70,000 people.