More tremors have hit this year

More magnitude-5 or stronger earthquakes have rocked China this year than in any other year, a senior seismologist said yesterday.

An average of 18 such quakes strike China each year. But 21 quakes, including the one that devastated Sichuan province on May 12, have struck in just eight months of this year, Yin Chaomin, deputy director of China Earthquake Administration (CEA), said.

Speaking at a joint briefing of the CEA and the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (SBSM), he said the tremors that rocked Xinjiang, Tibet and the Sichuan-Yunnan border region were caused partly by the May 12 quake. Part of the cause, of course, is their geographical locations on seismic belts.