Following the disaster, the China Earthquake Administration said it had initiated a grade III emergency response and dispatched a team of experts to the quake zone.

The Yunnan provincial earthquake bureau also sent two teams to the stricken region to collect information about the disaster and conduct monitoring at the site.

Xinhua quoted an expert from the administration as saying that there is a possibility further quakes with magnitudes above 5 will happen in the county in coming days.

Guo Changhong, a local resident, said she and her son were taking a nap at home when the quake occurred.

"I felt a strong shake that woke me up," Guo said. "At the same time, I heard that people outside were crying. Then I got up immediately and grabbed my son's hands and ran out."

Guo said tremors have been common in her county since January. She estimated the earthquakes occur 10 times a day on average.

"We were really afraid of the quakes at first, but later we got used to it," Guo said. "But we still didn't dare to sleep in the house at night, so we put up a tent in the courtyard and slept in it."

Many of her neighbors even slept in the streets, she said.

A Kunming woman surnamed Li, who was in Yingjiang visiting her parents, said three consecutive moderate tremors occurred on Thursday morning, when she was eating breakfast at a restaurant.

"I was scared and ran out," she told China Daily. "But other people still sat there and ate food as if nothing had happened."

On Jan 1, a 4.6-magnitude quake in Yingjiang affected 97,400 people and destroyed more than 10,000 buildings, according to local media. Despite the size of the disaster, no casualties were reported.