No casualties were reported late yesterday in the wake of an earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale that rocked a sparsely populated area of north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

“Although 13 aftershocks with a maximum of 3.5 were monitored following the major shock--the strongest of its type so far this year--no casualties or damage were immediately reported,” said Zeng Guoping, an official with Inner Mongolia’s regional seismological bureau.

The earthquake hit the central-eastern part of Inner Mongolia at 9:53 am, according to the China Seismological Bureau.

“It was a shallow one that occurred on the northeast seismic belt, which set off several quakes with a magnitude above 5 last August,” said Zeng.

There are fears that in the tremor-jolted area, at least 30 percent of the houses, mostly built of adobe or brick, or tents, might be damaged.

“The major difficulty for homeless victims there is to find shelter during cold spring days, since the temperature drops to minus 10 Celsius at night,” said Ba Tu, of the seismological station in Xilin Gol League.

The epicenter of the quake, located at 45.4 degrees north latitude and 118.2 degrees east longitude, is in the juncture area between Dong Ujimqin Banner and Xi Ujimqin Banner and is 230 kilometers from Xilin Hot.

Tremors were so strong that they could be felt near Beijing in Chengde, Hebei Province, and in the northeast at Chaoyang, Liaoning Province and Baicheng, Jilin Province.

More than 40 emergency rescue personnel from the China and Inner Mongolia seismological bureaus went to the quake-jolted areas yesterday to investigate the situation and help deal with the aftermath.

(China Daily March 25, 2004)