No injuries reported after moderate 5.7-magnitude earthquake rattles northwest China

May 29th, 2010 - 3:28 pm ICT by BNO News  

GYEGU, CHINA (BNO NEWS) — A moderate earthquake rattled northwest China on Saturday morning, seismologists said, but there were no reports of damage or casualties.

The 5.7-magnitude earthquake at 10.29 a.m. local time (0229 GMT) was centered about 80 kilometers (50 miles) west-northwest of Gyegu, a town in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of China’s Qinghai province. It struck about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to the China Earthquake Network Center.

The earthquake was felt strongly in Gyegy, said Xu Chuanjie, head of the emergency rescue section at the provincial earthquake bureau, but there were no reports of damage or casualties.

Liu Jie, director of the quake forecast center at the China Earthquake Network, told the state-run Xinhua news agency that the earthquake was an aftershock to the 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck the region on April 14.

The U.S. Geological Survey, however, was not able to confirm if the earthquake was in fact an aftershock. A geophysicist at the agency said there were many seismic faults in the area, and that it would be difficult to say if it is indeed an aftershock.

The earthquake in April killed more than 2,220 people and left more than 12,000 others injured.

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