BEIJING: A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck southwestern China on Sunday, killing at least 367 people and leaving 1,881 injured in a remote area of Yunnan province, and causing thousands of buildings, including a school, to collapse.

The US Geological Survey said the quake registered at a shallow depth of less than 1 mile (1.6 km). Chinese state media said it was felt most strongly in Yunnan as well as in the neighbouring provinces of Guizhou and Sichuan.

The official Xinhua news agency said the epicentre was in Longtoushan town in Yunnan’s mountainous Ludian county.

Communications have been seriously affected and rescuers have begun arriving on the scene, the report said.

Pictures posted online by state media showed troops stretchering people away and cars damaged by fallen bricks.

Many people rushed out of buildings onto the street after the quake hit, electricity supplies were cut and at least one school collapsed, Xinhua added, with more than 12,000 houses having collapsed and 30,000 sustaining damage.

Ludian resident Ma Liya told Xinhua the streets were like a “battlefield after bombardment”.

The government is sending 2,000 tents, 3,000 folding beds, 3,000 quilts and 3,000 coats to the disaster zone, where heavy rain forecast for the coming days will add to the misery, the report said.

Ludian is home to some 265,900 people, Xinhua added.

The region is frequently struck by quakes, with one killing more than 1,400 in the same part of Yunnan in 1974.

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

“Too many buildings were damaged and we are collecting data on deaths and injuries,” Xinhua quoted local official Chen Guoyong as saying in the township of Longt­oushan, which sits at the epicentre.

State television broadcast footage of people running from their homes and gathering in the streets, as witnesses described the devastation on social networks.

“The walls of several buildings crumbled, and water pipes were ruptured. The electricity was cut off,” wrote a user who said they lived in Ludian county, 23 kilometres from the epicentre, on China’s Twitter-like Weibo.

The user’s message was accompanied by images of cracked walls and a pile of bricks strewn across the road.

State media announced that 2,500 troops had been dispatched to quake-hit areas late Sunday, joining a team of more than 300 police and firefighters from Zhaotong City. The equipment brought to the area included life detection instruments and excavating tools.

The province also sent 392 rescuers and sniffer dogs to aid the relief operation.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2014