Parts of the small Chinese city of Yumen have been sealed off and quarantined after a resident died of bubonic plague last week.

State media said the quarantine in Yumen, a city in Gansu province, has prevented 30,000 of the city's residents from leaving. There are four quarantine sectors in the city.

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Police have set up roadblocks around the city's perimeter and motorists are being told to look for alternate routes.

The 38-year old male victim became ill after being bitten by a marmot (a large, wild rodent) and died Wednesday last week. No other plague cases have been reported.

State-run broadcaster CCTV reports there is enough food inside the city that can support residents for up to a month. It also added that quarantined residents are all in stable condition.

Known as the Black Death in the 1300s, bubonic plague wiped-out millions of people in Europe and was regarded as one of history's deadliest pandemics next to HIV/AIDS .

The plague is caused by a bacteria called Yersinia Pestis. Rodents are the primary carriers of the virus.

Flea bites or direct contact through tissue and bodily fluids of an infected animal, normally rats, can transmit this disease to humans.

The Center for Disease Control and Protection says the plague is treatable with antibiotics. But there are some 5,000 cases of the plague worldwide, most of them in Africa according to the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, said sealing off a city due to a single case of bubonic plague is rather extreme.

He also said the city does not require that kind of public health response.

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