BEIJING — China’s official Xinhua News Agency says the death toll from a strong earthquake in southern Yunnan province has risen to 367.

The news agency says that according to rescuers, 1,881 other people were injured in the quake, which topped thousands of homes in Ludian, a densely populated county located around 277 miles northeast of Yunnan’s capital, Kunming.

The magnitude-6.1 quake struck at 4:30 p.m. at a depth of 6 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Ma Liya, a resident of Zhaotong, told Xinhua that the streets there were like a “battlefield after bombardment.” She added that her neighbor’s house, a new two-story building, had toppled.

News reports said rescuers were still trying to reach victims in more remote towns Sunday night.

Photos on the Chinese social media site Weibo showed rescuers searching through flattened buildings and people injured amid toppled bricks.

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The homes that collapsed in Ludian, which has a population of about 429,000, were mostly old brick houses, Xinhua said, adding that electricity and telecommunications were cut off in the county.

The Red Cross Society of China has allocated 2,000 quilts, 2,000 jackets and 200 tents to aid those made homeless by the quake, while Red Cross branches in Hong Kong, Macau and neighboring Sichuan province have also sent relief supplies, Xinhua said.

The mountainous region where the quake occurred is largely agricultural, with farming and mining the top industries, and is prone to earthquakes.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the quake was the strongest to hit Yunnan in 14 years.

In 1970, a magnitude-7.7 earthquake in Yunnan killed at least 15,000 people, and a magnitude-7.1 quake in the province killed more than 1,400 in 1974. In September 2012, 81 people died and 821 were injured in a series of quakes in the Yunnan region.

In May 2008, a powerful quake in Sichuan province left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing.


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