Earthquake rocks China, at least 17 injured

An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale shook northwest China on Saturday, injuring at least 17 people, according to state media.

Many of the victims were hurt when houses collapsed, it said, and others were tossed from their beds.

Rescue teams were immediately dispatched to populated areas hit by the quake.

The earthquake jolted Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region at 5.07 a.m., according to the China Earthquake Networks Center.

Xinjiang is a vast region with a population of around 20 million, of whom some nine million are Uighurs, a Turkish-speaking, mainly Muslim ethnic minority.

The quake, at a shallow depth of 9.8 kilometres (six miles), had its epicentre 99 kilometres south of the city of Dushanzi, which was in a mountainous area along the border of the region's Hejing and Xinyuan counties, reported Xinhua.