National

Regional

Taiwan, HK, Macao

Special Coverage

Focus

Society

Profiles

Quake jolts China's Sichuan, no reports of damage

(Agencies/Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-30 08:12

BEIJING - A moderate earthquake occured in the early hours of Tuesday in the same part of China that was devastated by a quake last year, a spokesman for the State Seismological Bureau in Beijing said.

Related readings:  Quake victims still waiting for decent roofs  Farmers in China quake zone short of rebuilding money  China allocates 74B yuan for post-quake reconstruction in 2008  Official tally: 5,335 students killed in quake  I'm being demonized: Father of quake hero

"Yes, there's been an earthquake in the Mianzhu city area at 2:03 am (1803 GMT). We're still ascertaining what the situation is," said the spokesman for the Bureau.

The epicenter was located at 31.4 degrees north latitude and 104.1 degrees east longitude.

Xinhua news agency quoted the national seismological network as saying the magnitude was 5.6 and the depth was 20 km. The US Geological Survey put the size of the quake at 5.1 on the Richter scale and said it happened at a depth of 35 km (22 miles).

The State Seismological Bureau spokesman said it was not a very big quake, although local residents would have felt it. There was no immediate information about any damage or casualties.

Mianzhu lies north of Chengdu in Sichuan province, where an 8.0 magnitude quake on May 12 last year killed more than 80,000 people. Thousands more are still officially listed as missing.