A minimum of 21 folks have died after an earthquake of magnitude 6.8 hit China’s southwestern Sichuan province on Monday, state tv reported.

The earthquake hit at 12.52pm native time, and the US Geological Survey [USGS] estimates that over one million residents skilled the sturdy tremors within the quake’s aftermath.

The USGS mentioned that the epicentre of the quake was in Luding county at a depth of 16km, about 180km south-west of Sichuan’s capital Chengdu.

Chengdu resident Jiang Danli informed The Related Press: “There was a robust earthquake in June, however it wasn’t very scary. This time I used to be actually scared, as a result of I stay on a excessive flooring and the shaking made me dizzy.”

Ms Jiang hid below a desk for 5 minutes in her thirty first flooring condo. She mentioned a lot of her neighbours rushed downstairs.

A resident of Chengdu, recognized solely by her second identify Chen, was quoted as saying by AFP: “I felt it fairly strongly. A few of my neighbours on the bottom flooring mentioned they felt it very clearly.”

One other resident of Chongqing was quoted saying that the earthquake was “fairly noticeable” and made the lights and furnishings in his condo shake.

The USGS had issued earlier a yellow alert for potential “shaking-related fatalities”. It mentioned that “some casualties are doable”.

It additionally issued an orange alert for financial losses. On its web site, it talked about that “important injury is probably going and the catastrophe is probably widespread. Estimated financial losses are lower than 1 per cent of GDP of China”.

In June, a 6.1-magnitude earthquake in Ya’an in Sichuan province killed 4 and injured a number of others.