At least 22 people were killed, over 126 injured and thousands of houses destroyed on Saturday when a strong earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale hit quake-prone southwest China region.

An earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale also hit Hejing County in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region today but no casualty has been reported.

Latest reports said 17 people were reported dead and about 100 others injured in Panzhihua city in Sichuan, and five others dead and 26 other injured in neighbouring Yunnan Province.

The quake struck the juncture of Renhe District of Panzhihua and Huili County of Liangshan Prefecture at 4:30 pm (2:00 pm IST). The epicentre was about 50 km southeast of downtown Panzhihua, the National Seismograph Network Centre said.

In Panzhihua, a 54-year-old man was killed in debris in Miyi County and another person was killed Yanbian County. Nearly 1,000 houses were destroyed and cracks appeared in walls of more than 400 houses, Xinhua news agency reported.

In the affected counties of Liangshan Prefecture, 86 people were injured, and many houses were destroyed. The number of people buried in the ruins was not immediately available.

The quake also affected Chuxiong Prefecture in Yunnan Province, leaving five people dead and 26 others were injured, 11 severely, a prefecture government official said.

The casualties in Yunnan were reported in Yongren, Yuanmou, Wuding and Dayao counties, in which four deaths were in Yuanmou, about 55 km from the epicentre, and another in Yongren, about 30 km from the epicentre.

"Locals in the county rushed out into the open. Cracks appeared on house walls and many windows were broken," said Zheng Zhouwei, a local legislator in Yongren.

Yunan's capital, Kunming, about 150 km from the epicentre, and Sichuan's capital of Chengdu both felt the tremor.

Due to poor communication facilities, detailed casualties were still unknown, the report said.

Meanwhile, the second quake struck Xinjiang in northwest China at 8:46 pm (6:16 pm IST). The quake jolted the sparsely-inhabited Tianshan Mountains, Xinhua said in a separate report.

Nearby counties and Korla City all felt the tremor. No casualties were reported. Residents in Hejing County said "the intensity was not strong."

The local authorities had begun inspecting the damaged houses. Experts from Xinjiang and Korla earthquake bureaus were heading for the affected areas.

A massive 7.9 magnitude quake had hit Sichuan on May 12, killing nearly 70,000 people. Since then, the area has been hit by strong aftershocks.