The quake, measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale, hit Zhaosu county, with a population of 165,000, in the Xinjiang region near the border with Kazakhstan at 9.38 am (0138 GMT).

"An earthquake hit this morning. The shock was pretty strong," Zhang Gangqiang from the Zhaosu county seismological bureau told AFP.

A local official in the county, a mainly pastoral area populated by herdsmen, added: "In the county (administrative centre) there was panic. Everyone ran out of their houses. There is damage to buildings.

"The lights were swinging, the whole place shook."

The Xinhua news agency said at least 11 people were dead and 34 injured, while 700 houses collapsed. However, the head of the civil affairs bureau in the region told AFP that 47 people were injured and 769 houses were destroyed.

Xinhua said three of the dead were children aged below four.

Most of the deaths were in a special military-controlled zone on the border with Kazakhstan around 80 kilometres (49 miles) from the county's administrative centre.

"There are 11 dead and 47 people injured. We have transferred those affected to safe houses," said the civil affairs bureau head surnamed Mayouguo.

"The top priority is to help the injured and they have all been sent to hospitals. More information is gradually filtering through.

"So far 769 houses have collapsed and around 1,101 were damaged."

Another local civil affairs bureau official, a Kazak named Daoliti, said while temperatures in the region were freezing there was no snow on the ground and none forecast, aiding rescue efforts.

"The weather is good, there is no snow but it is very cold. It is -16 C," he said.

"Some 30 tents have been sent to the worst affected areas. Around 30 rescue workers have also been dispatched. Together with local rescue workers there are now around 200 people dealing with this.

"They are asking other areas to provide rescue materials such as food and tents."

Earthquakes regularly hit China's Tibetan plateau and Xinjiang region. They are also common in southwest Yunnan province, which was rattled by a magnitude 5.0 earthquake last week that injured 20 people and knocked down many homes.

A tremor in Yunnan in July killed 16 people.

Earlier this year, an earthquake in Muslim-majority Xinjiang left more than 260 people dead and thousands more injured.

The most deadly earthquake in modern Chinese history happened on July 28, 1976 in the northern city of Tangshan when a quake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale killed some 242,000 people.

Although China only takes up seven percent of the earth's landmass, it accounted for 33 percent of the world's major earthquakes of the 20th century.

TERRA.WIRE