Casualties as earthquakes hit southwest China

At least four people are dead and 14 others injured after two earthquakes hit southwestern China.

A shallow 6.1-magnitude quake hit a sparsely populated area in Sichuan province about 100 kilometres west of provincial capital Chengdu, state broadcaster CCTV said on Wednesday.

It was followed three minutes later by a second quake of magnitude 4.5 in a nearby county where the deaths and injuries occurred, according to CCTV.

Authorities dispatched hundreds of people for a search and rescue operation and to treat the injured, the report said.

The China Earthquake Networks Center said the first quake, in Lushan county of Ya'an city, struck at a depth of 17 kilometres at about 5 pm.

The US Geological Survey said the quake registered a magnitude of 5.9 and was more shallow at a depth of 10 kilometres.

It was felt in cities across Sichuan province, state media reported.

Buildings damaged

Sichuan authorities said some buildings had been damaged but there were no initial reports of any structures collapsing.

The mountainous province – a popular tourist destination home to China's giant pandas – is an earthquake-prone area.

A shallow quake on the border of Sichuan and neighbouring Yunnan province in January this year injured more than 20 people.

Last September three people were killed and dozens of others injured when another shallow quake damaged tens of thousands of homes.

A magnitude 8.0 quake in 2008 in Sichuan's Wenchuan county cost tens of thousands of lives and caused enormous damage.

Among the dead were thousands of children killed when poorly constructed school buildings collapsed, though the government did not release an exact death toll as the issue took on a political dimension.

READ MORE: China's Qinghai, Yunnan provinces rattled by earthquakes