Tourists in quake-hit region evacuated

BEIJING - Over 1,700 individual tourists and 38 tour groups in Southwest China's Ya'an city have been evacuated safely after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the region on Saturday, tourism authorities said Sunday.

No tourists were reported injured so far, according to the China National Tourism Administration.

There were 804 people in the tour groups, including 18 tourists from overseas, sources with the administration told Xinhua.

Death toll has risen to 186 so far after the quake jolted Lushan county of Ya'an, Sichuan province, at 8:02 am Saturday Beijing time, with 21 people reported missing and 11,393 others injured, according to latest statistics gathered by the provincial emergency response command center.