27 Dec 2008

Three quakes shake southwest China

10:53 am on 27 December 2008

Three earthquakes have jolted China's southwestern provinces, injuring 19 people and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands more.

Sichuan province, where a massive earthquake in May killed 80,000 people, is also in China's southwest.

China's state news agency, Xinhua, is now reporting that a tremor measuring 4.9 hit a village on the China-Myanmar border on Friday. Another 4.3 tremor near Kunming in Yunnan province damaged more than 100 buildings and a third quake measuring 4 struck in Guizhou province.

Millions of people made homeless by the Sichuan quake are still without adequate shelter and infrastructure. The reconstruction of 3340 schools in the quake zone is not expected to be finished till September 2010.