China Quake Death Toll At 11

A strong earthquake rumbled through a swath of western China's mountainous Xinjiang region Monday, killing at least 11 people and collapsing hundreds of homes near the border with Kazakhstan, the government said.

Thirty-four people were reported injured and more than 700 houses fell, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The 6.1 magnitude quake, in the sparsely populated Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, hit at 9:38 a.m. local time Monday, Xinhua said. It said the quake was felt for many miles around.

"I was just getting up out of bed, and everything in my house was rattling. The wall was vibrating," said a resident of Zhaosu County, where the quake hit hard. He identified himself only as Mr. Wu. "Fortunately, my house is made out of brick, not wood and sand."

The Russian ITAR-Tass news agency said the tremor was felt in Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan, about 100 miles west. It said there were no injuries or damage there.

At least 11 people were confirmed dead in Xinjiang as of Monday afternoon, Xinhua said, adding that all the dead were workers and their families in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and included three children age 4 or younger.

The corps, a one-time military unit similar to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was converted to a civilian construction and militia operation in 1954. Its workers live in houses built more than three decades ago.

"Houses that were built in the 1960s and 1970s all collapsed," said an official at the Xinjiang Seismological Bureau who gave only his surname, Xie.

The U.S. Geological Service's National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado confirmed the tremor but measured it at magnitude 5.7.

Rescue teams were en route to the area, Xinhua said, and investigators for the State Seismological Bureau were also on the way.

"My house is all right, but there are other houses in our town that have collapsed," said Ha Lidan, a woman who lives in Zhaosu County.

Xinjiang was the site of the most lethal quake in China this year — a magnitude 6.8 temblor on Feb. 24 that killed 268 people.

China's deadliest earthquake in modern history struck the northeastern city of Tangshan on July 28, 1976, killing some 240,000 people. Its magnitude was measured at 7.8 to 8.2.

Though China's western regions are known for earthquakes, the number of fatal quakes in recent months — at least a half-dozen — has been noteworthy.

Last week, a magnitude 5 earthquake struck a remote area of the southwestern province of Yunnan, injuring 20 people and knocking down two-thirds of the houses in an impoverished county. That quake was the fourth to hit Yunnan in the past five months. A tremor of magnitude 6.2 on July 21 killed 16 people.