At least 32 people died and more than 400 others were injured when a 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit southwest China's Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said last night.

The quake destroyed more than 180,000 homes and affected at least 800,000 residents with about 40,000 evacuated to safety, the ministry said.

The epicenter of Saturday's quake, which struck around 4:30pm, was about 30 kilometers southeast of Panzhihua, near Sichuan's border with Yunnan.

A 5.6-magnitude aftershock hit the same area at 4:31pm yesterday. It is not known if any new damage was caused.

Sichuan reported 27 deaths and the other five were in Yunnan, the ministry said.

A total of 6,200 tents, 3,500 quilts and 25,000 kilograms of rice have been transferred to the quake zone.

Areas affected by the quake were mostly on the southern end of the fault line of the May 12 quake that left 69,226 people dead and 17,923 missing.

More than 300 aftershocks were also monitored in the quake zone as of 5am yesterday.

Panzhihua City Quake Control and Relief Headquarters yesterday confirmed that more than 70,460 people in the city were affected by the quake. In addition, more than 32,240 people were displaced.

In total, 38,425 residences suffered damage in the quake, with 363 homes collapsing. Seven reservoirs, 22 highways and three bridges were also damaged.

The Panzhihua education authority said cracks were found on more than 100 schools. "I am afraid these schools will not open for the new semester today," said Shen Zhiqiang, an official with the education bureau.

Further south, 600,000 people in five regions of Yunnan were affected by the quake. This included five deaths, 112 injured and the destruction of 130,00 residences, according to Yunnan Provincial Bureau of Civil Affairs.

The bureau said it had already sent relief materials including 3,200 tents, 1,000 cotton-padded quilts and 25 tons of rice to quake zones in the province.

Traffic on the north-south railway from Chengdu, the Sichuan capital, to Kunming, capital of Yunnan, which runs through the quake zone, was disrupted temporarily on Saturday and resumed yesterday. Some stops on the 1,100 kilometer line were damaged, which led to the cancelation of three freight trains, according to the Kunming Railways Administration.

"Resumption of this railway service will guarantee the delivery of relief materials to the quake zone centered on Panzhihua," said a Kunming Railways Administration official.

(Shanghai Daily September 1, 2008)