Fifteen injured in southwest China quake

BEIJING: Fifteen people were injured when a

shallow earthquake

hit southwestern China on Sunday afternoon and shook the popular tourist city of Lijiang, state media said.

The quake struck on the border between Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, according to the

US Geological Survey

(

USGS

), which put the magnitude at 5.4 and depth at 38 kilometres (24 miles).

State broadcaster CGTN said 15 people were injured, citing the local earthquake agency.

The China Earthquake Networks Centre later measured the magnitude at 5.5 with a depth of 10 kilometres.

The epicentre was 115 kilometres away from Lijiang in

Yunnan province

, the USGS said.

China is regularly hit by earthquakes, especially in its mountainous western and southwestern regions.

In September three people were killed and dozens injured when a shallow quake hit Sichuan province, and tens of thousands of homes were damaged.

A 7.9-magnitude quake in Sichuan province in 2008 left more than 80,000 people dead.

Among them were thousands of children, killed when poorly constructed school buildings collapsed, but the government failed to release an exact number of dead as the issue took on a political dimension.