Two earthquakes measuring 3.1 and 4.2 on the Richter Scale jolted China's Hebei Province Saturday morning, according to China's national seismological network.
The first quake struck at 10:49 am (Beijing time), and the second at 11:00 am. The earthquakes hit the juncture area between Luanxian County of Tangshan City and the urban area of Tangshan.
The epicenter was at 39.7 degrees north latitude and 118.5 degrees east longitude, with a depth of 15 km, the network said.
A man from the Xiangfuli Community in Tangshan told Xinhua he acutely felt two tremors at his home which was on the fifth floor.
The Tangshan Seismological Bureau said they had not received any report of casualties or construction damage and the influence of the quakes would be "slight."
A deadly 7.8-magnitude quake hit Tangshan in 1976, claiming more than 240,000 lives. But Saturday's tremors did not arouse panic among residents.
"I felt the quake, but I didn't feel panic," said Yang Guoqiang, an elderly who was taking a walk in a garden when it struck.
Many constructions in Tangshan were built after the deadly earthquake, and were "of good quality," Yang said.
Xinhua reporters found that the city's traffic went smoothly and that many residents even did not leave their homes after the tremors.
Experts with seismological bureaus at municipal, provincial and state levels agreed that no devastating earthquake would hit Tangshan in the near future. |
