Rescuers work near the rubble from an earthquake in China’s Xinjiang region on Tuesday. AP

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck a sparsely populated part of China’s western Xinjiang region early Tuesday, injuring six people and damaging or collapsing more than 120 homes in freezing cold weather, authorities said. The quake was the latest in a series of seismic events and natural disasters to hit the vast country's western regions.

The quake rocked Uchturpan county in Aksu prefecture shortly after 2am, the China Earthquake Networks Center said. Around 200 rescuers were dispatched to the epicenter. The county is called Wushi in the Mandarin language spoken by most Chinese.

Of the six people hurt, two had serious injuries and four were minor. In addition, 47 houses collapsed, 78 houses were damaged and some agricultural structures collapsed, the government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region posted on its official Weibo social media account.

The quake downed power lines but electricity was quickly restored, Aksu authorities reported. Mountainous Uchturpan county had around 233,000 people in 2022, according to Xinjiang authorities.

Urumqi Railroad Bureau resumed services after 7 a.m. following safety checks that confirmed no problems on the train lines. The suspension had affected 23 trains, the bureau serving the Xinjiang capital said on its official Weibo account.

People gather in a street after leaving their flats in apartment buildings after the earthquake. AP

The US Geological Survey said the quake measured 7.0 magnitude and occurred in the seismically active Tian Shan mountain range. It said the area's largest quake in the past century was 7.1 magnitude and occurred in 1978 about 200 kilometers (124 miles) to the north of one early Tuesday.

Multiple aftershocks were recorded, the strongest of them at 5.3 magnitude.

The rural area is populated mostly by Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnicity that is predominantly Muslim and has been the target of a state campaign of forced assimilation and mass detention. The region is heavily militarized and state broadcaster CCTV showed paramilitary troops moving in before dawn to clear rubble and set up tents for those displaced.

Associated Press