A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck a sparsely populated area of China’s western Xinjiang region early on Tuesday, killing three 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 Centre said.

Rescue crews were rushed to the area, with about 1,000 on hand by midday. By evening, authorities said three people had died and five were injured in the county, which is also called Wushi in the Mandarin language spoken by most Chinese people.

Rescue crews combed through the rubble, overturning bricks and stone blocks in search of victims. Emergency survival gear — including coats, tents and folding beds to help the thousands of people who fled their homes — had arrived or were on their way, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Of the five hurt, two had serious injuries. Among the more than 120 buildings damaged, 47 houses collapsed, 78 houses were damaged and some greenhouses were reduced to plastic sheets and rubble, the government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region posted on its official Weibo social media account.

The quake downed power cables but electricity was quickly restored, Aksu authorities reported.

The mountainous Uchturpan county had around 233,000 people in 2022, according to Xinjiang authorities.

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 124 miles (200km) to the north of the one early on 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 militarised and state broadcaster CCTV showed paramilitary troops moving in before dawn to clear rubble and set up tents for people who had been displaced.

Uchturpan county is recording temperatures well below freezing, with lows down to minus 18C forecast by the China Meteorological Administration this week.

Tremors were felt across the Xinjiang region and in the neighbouring countries of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Earthquakes are common in western China, including in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, as well as the Xinjiang region and Tibet.

A 6.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Gansu in December killed 151 people and was China’s deadliest quake in nine years.

An earthquake that hit Sichuan in 2008 killed nearly 90,000 people. The collapse of schools and other buildings led to a years-long effort to rebuild using more quake-resistant materials.