At least 50 people are reported to be dead and 150 others injured as of 3:50 p.m. The lives of over 700,000 people have been disrupted by the earthquake in Yiliang and Daguan counties as well as Zhaoyang district. More than 100,000 people have been evacuated from Zhaotong. More than 20,000 houses were damaged or had collapsed in the quake.
The quake-prone area had been stricken by 16 aftershocks, with the strongest one measuring at magnitude-5.6, at 1:00 p.m. So far, no casualties have been reported in Guizhou Province, but the quake has also damaged or even toppled homes in Weining county in the province.
Southwest China is an earthquake prone region. Sichuan and parts of neighbouring Shaanxi and Gansu provinces were rocked by an 8.0-magnitude quake, killing tens of thousands and flattening swaths of the province in May 2008.