Tourists unscathed in Sichuan province

No casualty has been reported for tourists in Ya'an, epicenter of a 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province, according to Western China Metropolis Daily.

A total of 804 tourists, including 10 from Malaysia and eight from Hong Kong, were on a sight-seeing trip near Ya'an on Saturday and were evacuated to safe areas, with no deaths or injuries reported, the newspaper said.

The tourists, most of whom are from the Chinese mainland, belong to 38 teams organized by eight travel agencies in Sichuan province, the newspaper said. All travel plans to Ya'an for the coming weeks were canceled.

Following the quake, the city's tourism department launched an emergency plan and opened a 24-hour hotline, 0835-96927, for tourists in need of help in Ya'an.

Tourists in other areas of Sichuan, including 362 people from Taiwan, more than 600 from Shanghai, and 130 from Hong Kong, also were reported safe, according to travel agencies and tourism authorities.