5.1 magnitude quakes shakes Sichuan region of China

BEIJING - A 5.0-magnitude tremor hit the Chinese province of Sichuan on Sunday, the US Geological Survey said, three years after a giant quake left 87,000 dead or missing in the region. The tremor struck at 3:05 pm (0705 GMT) at a depth of 15 kilometers (nine miles) with an epicenter 31 kilometers west of the city of Guangyuan, the USGS said. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. An 8.0-magnitude quake rocked Sichuan and parts of neighboring Shaanxi and Gansu provinces on May 12, 2008, killing tens of thousands and flattening swathes of the province. China’s government issued a plan in September 2008 to rebuild 51 quake-struck counties covering 130,000 square kilometers (50,200 square miles), the official Xinhua news agency said. Mu Hong, a vice director of the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planning agency, said last week that work on 95 percent of the reconstruction projects in the plan had been completed. China has spent nearly 800 billion yuan ($123 billion) to rebuild in the region, senior officials said last week.