At least 50 people were killed, 150 injured, and about 20.000 houses were destroyed when a series of earthquakes struck southwest China.
The strongest earthquake, with a magnitude of 5,7 on the Richter scale, occurred at 11 a.m. local time on the border of Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, at a depth of 14 kilometers, the Earthquake Monitoring Center said, stating that Yunnan province was the hardest hit.
More than tens of thousands of people had to leave their homes, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported. Rescue services immediately went to the areas affected by the earthquakes, and the authorities sent tents and blankets to the population.
"I was walking down the street when I felt the ground shaking under my feet. People started running out of the buildings, screaming," said a Chinese man on the Sina Weibo social network, reports AFP.
The strongest earthquake was followed by a series of aftershocks, which were of lesser intensity, but were also felt in the neighboring province of Sichuan.
Southwest China is a fragile area, where in May 2008 an earthquake with an intensity of eight degrees hit Sichuan province, as well as parts of Shanxi and Gansu provinces, causing great human and material damage.
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