The quake struck in Sichuan province at a depth of ten kilometer.

Local media reports say the impact cut off telecommunications lines and triggered mountain landslides that caused serious damage.

Some twenty one million people in Sichuan’s capital Chengdu were last week ordered to stay at home because of Covid rules.

The epicentre of the quake was at Luding, a town in a remote mountain region, according to the China Earthquake Networks Centre.

Reports say seventeen people died in the city of Ya’an, while twenty nine deaths were reported in the neighboring prefecture of Ganzi.