A 6.6-magnitude quake that hit the Minxian and Zhangxian counties in northwest China's Gansu Province Monday killed 11 people and seriously injured 81, reported China's State Media.
The epicenter was 170 kilometers away from Lanzhou, capital of the Gansu province, according to the Chinese State News Agency Xinhua.
A second 5.6-magnitude quake followed about an hour later.
A local official told AFP that 19 people were killed and more than 200 people injured in seven townships that were hit by the quake this morning.
Following the natural disaster, China Earthquake Administration has initiated an emergency-response plan to help the people affected by the quake in Gansu province.
The administration said the emergency-response includes close monitoring of the quake and deploying rescue and relief teams to the affected areas in the province.
A quake of a similar magnitude in 2008 killed around 90,000 people in the neighboring Sichuan Province.
"My birth place in recent years has become very prone to earth quake and I don't know what is the exact cause of the disasters but I believe most of the disasters including landslide are because of the severe mining and deforestation in the region," said Tenzin Jamphel (name changed on request), a Tibetan college student in India from the Sichuan province who lost all of his family members including his parents in the 2008 earthquake.
About $6 billion (40.8 billion Chinese yuan) in relief funds was allocated by the government following the devastation in 2008. A large amount of the fund was misused by corrupt local officials, according to China's National Audit Office.
Despite dictatorial laws of the communist country; corruption, favoritism and nepotism are deeply embedded in the country's administration and putting an end to this corruption is one of the pledges of China's new leadership.
