Officials check residences after another major trembler hits region

Nine people were injured in the magnitude 5.6 earthquake which jolted Gongxian, a county under the administration of Yibin in Sichuan province, at 10:17 am on Thursday.

With a depth of 8 kilometers, the earthquake was felt by people in Yibin, 46 km from Gongxian, and the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu 277 km away.

"I felt the road shaking when I was standing on the bank of the Yangtze River with a delegation of visitors from outside Yibin," said Hu Jianjun, an information officer with the Nanxi district government of Yibin.

Soon after the earthquake, government workers headed for the quake zone, paying house calls to evaluate the damage to residential houses.

"Some houses which were damaged in the Changning earthquake on June 17 might be livable after reinforcement. But they might have been further damaged in the earthquake on Thursday and became unlivable," said Chen Housheng, deputy chief of the standing committee of the Yibin people's congress. As a scientist, Chen studied geology as a university student and was a leading official of the Yibin science and technology bureau.

The Changning earthquake killed 13 and injured 268 in Yibin, including four deaths and 128 injuries in Gongxian.

Yibin mayor Du Ziping said the June 17 death toll was not heavy thanks to the central government's poverty relief policy which resulted in the demolition of houses in danger of collapsing and the reinforcement of houses in need of repair.

Yibin has relied on its own funds as well as funds from the central government to build new houses for the poor whose dwellings were likely to collapse in resettlement areas.

Thanks to subsidies from both governments, a poor family paid only about 10,000 yuan ($1,460) to own a decent house with electricity, running water and natural gas.

Chen also ruled out the possibility that earthquakes were triggered by shale gas exploitation.

"Shale gas exploitation can only result in the shaking of the earth's crust and earthquakes below magnitude 3.0 with a depth of 3 to 5 km," he said.