Two Strong Quakes Rattle Two Regions Of China Today. A series of strong earthquakes rattled northwest and southwest China, leaving at least two people dead, local officials and seismologists said early Saturday.

Both Qinghai province in the northwest on the Tibetan plateau and Yunnan province in southwestern China are areas prone to earthquakes. And both tremors were very shallow, meaning they generally cause great damage.

Earlier a Yunnan quake, which had a magnitude of 6.1, struck first at 9:48 pm Friday (13:48 UTC) near the city of Dali, a popular tourist destination.

Two people were confirmed dead in the mountainous area, local officials said in a statement. Later on, state news agency Xinhua said at least 22 others had been injured.

Then some hours later, (18:04 UTT), more than 1,200 kilometres away, a 7.4 Magnitude Earthquake jolted China’s sparsely populated Qinghai province in the northwest, followed by many aftershocks.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the remote area. Xinhua said the epicentre was located in Maduo County, and that officials believed only “a small number of houses” would be damaged as the nearest populated areas were 500km away.