Experts from the Seismological Bureau of Jilin Province in Northeast China agreed on Saturday that there is little possibility that a ruinous earthquake could jolt the province in the near future.
An earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale rocked the province's Wangqing County (43.5 degrees north latitude, 130.6 degrees east longitude) on Saturday.
The quake was felt in most regions of Jilin, Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces, in the eastern part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, in northern Hebei Province and part of Beijing, and in Shandong and Henan provinces, the bureau said.
But even in Zhejiang Province, which is about 2,000 kilometres away on the eastern coast of the country, the quake was felt, it said.
No casualties or damage have been reported as yet.
Dong Jichuan, director of the province's Seismological Bureau, said that Jilin Province is located in an area unlikely to be hit by frequent earthquakes. Statistics show that only three strong earthquakes, measuring 5.6, 5.2 and 7.0 on the Richter scale, have previously hit the province, one in 1960, another in 1966 and one in 1999.
(Xinhua News Agency July 1, 2002)
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