TWENTY-TWO people were injured when a shallow earthquake hit south-western China this afternoon and shook the popular tourist city of Lijiang, said local authorities.

The quake struck near the border between Yunnan and Sichuan, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), which put the magnitude at 5.4 and depth at 38km.

The Yunnan Seismological Bureau said 22 people were injured, two severely, in the tremor in Ninglang.

It said there is no report yet of damage to houses, but state news agency Xinhua said a 60-strong search-and-rescue team has been despatched to the epicentre.

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

The USGS said the epicentre is 115km away from Lijiang in Yunnan province.

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

Three people were killed and dozens injured, while tens of thousands of homes were damaged when a shallow tremor hit Sichuan in September.

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

Among them were thousands of children, who died 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. – AFP, January 2, 2022.