Three die, 290 hurt as quake hits China tea city

BEIJING, June 3 (Reuters) A strong earthquake hit a tea-making city in southwest China toay, collapsing houses and killing at least three people, one a 4-year-old girl, and injuring 290, Xinhua news agency said.

The quake shook the city of Pu'er and the surrounding area in mountainous Yunnan province in the early morning when most people were asleep, the agency said. It was followed by 55 aftershocks.

Tremors were felt 200 km away to the north and south.

Power was cut to the city and the only communications possible were by cell phone, a local official said. The quake forced the evacuation of 120,000 residents, Xinhua quoted a provincial civil affairs department official as saying.

''The death toll has increased from two to three,'' a Xinhua correspondent reported. ''Injuries have risen to 290.'' Some mostly mud houses had collapsed and roads were destroyed, state TV said. Water and power supplies were damaged.

''In one (collapsed) building with tens of families, I saw one four-year-old girl who had been crushed to death,'' Wang Jian, a reporter for Xinhua, told Hong Kong's Cable TV.

The quake hit at 5.34 a.m. (0204 hrs ist) and one Pu'er office worker named Li said it had woken her in her fifth-floor apartment.

''I tried to get up but the tremor was too strong. It cracked the window panes,'' she told Reuters.

She was called to her office and there she saw soldiers and armed police rushing down the street as rescue operations began.

The Pu'er city government had allocated 1 million yuan for relief, Xinhua said. The provincial civil affairs department was sending 2,000 tents, 2,000 quilts and 2,000 items of clothing to the stricken area.

Ning'er county, covering an area of 3,670 sq km within the city limits, has a population of 190,000.

Pu'er, home of the tea of the same name, lies near to the border with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. The epicentre of the quake was 23.0 degrees north and 101.1 degrees east.

Pu'er tea dates back to the early Tang Dynasty (618-763).

Over the centuries it was used as a form of currency in China and was an important international trading item.

Earthquakes are common in China. In August last year, a 5.1 magnitude quake rocked Yunnan, killing two people.

REUTERS JT KP1350