The 6.6 magnitude earthquake that hit the mountainous province of Yunnan in southwest China late Tuesday left one dead, 324 injured, and resulted in an evacuation of more than 50,000 people, announced state media.

As of today, the official Xinhua news agency noted that only one person was found to have been killed in the catastrophe and the 324 people injured were from Jinggu County, the area closest to the epicenter of the earthquake.

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The officials reported that there were over 92,000 people in Jinggu who were affected and out of that number, 56,880 had to be relocated due to their houses having collapsed.

Investigations are still ongoing as the aftershocks continue and officials have yet to disclose the official number of casualties.

Yunnan authorities declared the situation a top-level emergency resulting in 3,200 troops being deployed. Another 600 professional rescuers along with sniffer dogs were also sent to the quake zone in hopes of helping more people affected by the tragedy.

The epicenter was said to be 85 kilometers from Pu'er city, located at the southern area of Yunnan and the earthquake was also felt in Kunming, the province's capital.

People from Jinggu reported that buildings shook for a few seconds and other towns lost their power supplies as well. Another area affected by the quake was the city of Lincang where most of the houses in the area experienced extensive damage.

Yunnan is a densely-populated region in China and it is highly vulnerable to earthquakes, reports Xinhua news agency. The earthquake hit the province which is closest to China's borders with Myanmar and Laos, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

Yunnan is always affected by seismic activity occurring between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. Back in August, another earthquake hit the province killing more than 600 people and leaving 3,000 injured. It also affected 80,000 people whose houses were either partially or fully destroyed. 

Tagsearthquake, Yunnan, casualties, injured, displaced, evacuated, Xinhua, Jinggu, quake