Society

M5.2 earthquake hits Yushu

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-06-26 19:02

BEIJING - An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale jolted Nangchen county in the Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Yushu in Northwest China's Qinghai province at 15:48 Sunday, said the China Earthquake Networks Center.

The epicenter, which was identified otherwise as Nangqian in a separate report filed previously, was monitored at 32.4 degrees north latitude and 95.9 degrees east longitude with a depth of 10 km, the center said in a statement on its website.

A fresh 3.1-magnitude quake shook the Nangchen county four minutes after the 5.2 magnitude quake, according to the center. ?

The county is about 185 kilometers south of Gyegu Town, the seat of the Yushu prefectural government and the epicenter of another major 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck Yushu in April 2010.

The quake last year killed nearly 2,700 people in Yushu, a largely Tibetan region with a population of 350,000, and flattened the entire town of Gyegu, leaving more than 100,000 residents homeless.

Post-quake rebuilding began in Yushu on June 20 last year and hundreds of new homes and public facilities have been built. The government's three-year rebuilding plan will cost an estimated 31.65 billion yuan ($4.86 billion).