The death toll in the powerful quake which hit southwest China on Saturday has risen to 44, with over 500 people injured, the Xinhua news agency said on Monday.
The 6.1-quake struck China`s Sichuan Province on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. [8:30 a.m. GMT] with the epicenter about 50 km southeast of the city of Panzhihua, killing at least 38 people in Sichuan and six in the neighboring Yunnan province. It was previously reported that 27 people had been killed and over 100 injured.
The quake also destroyed 258,000 homes.
At least 300 aftershocks have been since registered in the area, the most powerful of them measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale.
The Sichuan province recently marked 100 days since it was hit by a massive earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale, the most powerful to hit the region in thirty years. At least 70,000 people were killed and 10 million displaced in the May 12 quake.
RIA Novosti