Three people were killed and about 40 injured in Yunnan province after an earthquake hit the province's Diqing Tibet autonomous prefecture on Saturday, China News Service reported. The casualties may keep rising.

Vice-Premier Wang Yang said the State Council will give its full support to the disaster relief work, during a telephone call to the command center for the disaster relief work in the prefecture.

The provincial tourism department revealed on Sunday that some 300 tourists were in the quake-hit areas, including Shangri-La county, a popular tourist destination, and that they are being evacuated.

The affected area includes the Yunnan-Sichuan border area in the prefecture's Shangri-La and Deqen counties, as well as Derong county in Sichuan province.

Falling rocks injured seven tourists in four buses after the magnitude-5.9 quake struck at 8:04 am on Saturday, said Yu Fan, deputy director of the Yunnan Provincial Tourism Development Committee. The injured are being treated at a local hospital in Shangri-La county and their injuries are not life-threatening, Yu said.

According to the tourism authority, travel agencies are banned from organizing tour groups to the prefecture until Sept 5. Individual tourists and local residents are advised not to go to the scenic spots in quake-hit areas during the same period.

Local traffic authorities also applied traffic control procedures on national highway 214, only allowing vehicles engaged in disaster relief work to enter the quake-affected areas.

The prefecture's educational authorities decided to postpone the start of the new school term in the area.

The same area was also hit by a magnitude-5.1 quake on Wednesday, causing rockfalls and disrupting road traffic, leaving 51 tourists stranded at the scenic spot of Balagezong in Yunnan. All tourists had been evacuated from Balagezong as of Saturday morning.

So far, a 3-kilometer section of the 17 km road leading to Balagezong has been cleared, but it is expected to take another two days before traffic can resume, said Li Liangbing, an officer from the Armed Police Force who was working to remove the rocks.

The two earthquakes cut off power supplies to more than 42,000 residents, and so far nearly 90 percent of the affected power supply has been restored, according to the Yunnan provincial power grid company.

Direct economic losses caused by the quakes could reach 1.4 billion yuan ($228.8 million). Around 112,000 people were affected by the quakes, with nearly 20,000 being relocated to safe areas.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

(China Daily USA 09/02/2013 page4)