Saturday's earthquake in southwest China's Yunnan Province has injured 26 people, according to local government sources yesterday, and destroyed houses as well as damaging reservoirs, highways and telecommunications facilities.

As of 6 PM yesterday, over 12,000 people had been evacuated and more than 600 rescued from dangerous locations.

The epicenter of the quake, 5.3 on the Richter scale, was determined to be at the juncture of the towns of Matang, Binglie and Hongdian in Wenshan County, part of Wenshan Zhuang-Miao Autonomous Prefecture.

More than 1,000 army and civil defense personnel joined disaster relief efforts, helping evacuation and rescue work as well as in building over 300 shelters for displaced people.

The local government organized operations and sent a large amount of tents and quilts to the disaster-afflicted areas, said Zhang Jihua, director of the prefecture's civil affairs bureau.

In addition, the provincial government has appropriated 2 million yuan (US$240,000) in emergency aid for quake-hit areas, according to Duan Liyuan, deputy director of the provincial civil affairs department.

(Xinhua News Agency August 15, 2005)