China province struck by 6.9 quake

Updated 3m ago

BEIJING (AP) β€” A series of strong earthquakes struck China's western Qinghai province Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The USGS reported on its website that a magnitude 6.9 temblor struck an area in southern Qinghai, near Tibet, at 7:50 a.m. local time, and was followed by two quakes in the same region.

The quake hit the county of Yushu, a Tibetan area in Qinghai, the official Xinhua News Agency cited the China Earthquake Networks Center as saying. The Chinese center measured the quake's magnitude at 7.1.

The epicenter of the first quake was located 235 miles south-southeast of Golmud, a large city in Qinghai, at a depth of six miles, the USGS said.

Ten minutes later, the area was hit by a magnitude 5.3 quake, which was followed after two minutes by a temblor measuring 5.2, according to the U.S. agency. Both the subsequent earthquakes were measured at a depth of 6 miles (10 kilometers).

In 2008, a magnitude-7.9 quake in Sichuan province left almost 90,000 people dead or missing.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010 ... uake_N.htm