China earthquake injures 300, 3 dead: Xinhua

By Nick Macfie

BEIJING (Reuters) - An earthquake hit a tea-making city in southwest China on Sunday, bringing down houses and killing at least three people, one a 4-year-old, and injuring 300, Xinhua news agency said.

The quake shook the city of Pu'er and the surrounding area in mountainous Yunnan province in the early morning when most people were asleep, the agency said. It was followed by 55 aftershocks.

Tremors were felt 200 km (120 miles) away to the north and south.

"The dead included a 4-year-old boy, who was sleeping with his mother when the earth-built walls of their house collapsed in the quake and buried him and half of the body of his mother," Xinhua said. "The mother was rescued but the boy was killed."

Xinhua earlier told a Hong Kong television station a 4-year-old girl was among the dead. It was not clear if the two child victims were one and the same.

Power was cut to the city and the only communications possible were by mobile phone, a local official said. The quake forced the evacuation of 120,000 residents, Xinhua quoted a provincial civil affairs department official as saying.

Some mostly mud-and-brick houses had collapsed and roads were destroyed, state TV said. Water and power supplies were damaged.

The quake hit at 5:34 a.m. (2134 GMT Saturday) and one Pu'er office worker named Li said it had woken her in her fifth-floor apartment.