At least 152 people have died and another 3,000 were injured after a 7 magnitude earthquake ripped through south-west China on Saturday morning.

The earthquake's epicentre was close to Lushan county on the outskirts of Ya'an, a city of roughly 1.5 million around 80 miles from Chengdu, the provincial capital.

The initial quake, at just after 8am, was judged to be 6.6 magnitude by the United States Geological Survey and 7 magnitude by the Chinese authorities.

There were a further nine aftershocks over the course of the next hour, panicking locals and triggering mud slides in the surrounding mountains.

The quake occurred along the same Longmen, or Dragon's Gate, fault line that ruptured during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, a 7.9 magnitude disaster that claimed some 68,000 lives.

Most of the casualties in the latest quake appeared to have been sustained in Lushan, where water, electricity and telecommunications were cut off.