Rescue efforts underway after China earthquake
STORY: Nearly 250 people were being treated for injuries from the disaster, with dozens critically wounded, according to Chinese state media.
Rescuers are also working on retrieving over 200 people stranded in the quake zone, restoring telecommunications services and power and water utilities, as well as delivering food supply to residents affected by the magnitude-6.8 temblor, state media reported.
The powerful earthquake struck Sichuan after midday on Monday, with the epicentre deep in the province's mountainous interior in the west. The quake was felt as far away as the provinces of Shaanxi and Guizhou, hundreds of kilometres away.
Earthquakes are common in Sichuan, especially in its mountains in the west, a tectonically active area along the eastern boundary of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau.
Monday's quake was Sichuan's biggest since August 2017, when one of magnitude 7.0 hit the Aba prefecture north of Luding.
In recent decades, the most devastating earthquake in Sichuan - and China - was in 2008, when a magnitude 8.0 temblor centred in Wenchuan killed nearly 70,000 people.
