Beijing - At least 80 people were killed Friday when a pair of earthquakes shook a mountainous region of southwest China, triggering landslides, thousands of buildings damaged and forced thousands of residents from their homes, the official New China News Agency said.
The first earthquake, a magnitude of 5.7, shook the border area of Yunnan and Guizhou provinces at 11:19 an hour later, the second earthquake hit, had a magnitude of 5.6.
The temblors destroyed or damaged 20,000 homes and injured more than 700 people in the largely poor, rural area. State media reported that 100,000 people were evacuated.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao toured the area Saturday to coordinate rescue efforts, state media said.
A local official in hard hit Yiliang county, Yunnan province, told the Associated Press that many houses had collapsed.
"The emergency number is still made," said the official, who refused to give his name. "I do not know what it was like for the other towns, but my town has been hit hard."
Gang Huangfu, director of Yunnan's seismological bureau, told state media that houses and buildings in the region are not built to withstand the earthquake.
Building standards remains a sensitive topic in China's countryside. In 2008, Sichuan province devastated by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake that killed nearly 90,000 people. Shoddy construction in underdeveloped disaster is blamed for the high toll.