Two people sustained minor injuries when a magnitude-6.2 earthquake jolted Hutubi County in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region at 13:15 on Thursday, local authorities said.

The epicenter was located at 43.83 degrees north latitude and 86.35 degrees east longitude. The quake struck at a depth of 6 km, and was felt strongly in Urumqi, the regional capital 100 km away, and other parts of northern Xinjiang.

The moderate quake was followed by more than 140 aftershocks on Thursday afternoon, including six measuring between 3 and 3.9 magnitude.

Seven houses were toppled, another 18 were severely damaged and 379 had cracks following the tremor, according to the local command center for earthquakes.

The China Earthquake Administration has launched an emergency response, and teams have been sent to Xinjiang to help with relief work.

Local schools in Hutubi suspended classes on Thursday afternoon.

Meanwhile, 24 trains have been affected as local railway authorities suspended rail services out of safety concerns.

A safety check was conducted on railway facilities between Urumqi and Kuytun, according to the Urumqi Railway Bureau.

The quake's epicenter was in northern Hutubi, a sparsely-populated region at an altitude of 1,500 meters. More than 70 percent of houses in Hutubi and the neighboring regions of Manas and Shihezi are government-subsidized earthquake-proof properties.

China Earthquake Administration said in a press conference that the earthquake is not directly related to the one in Xinjiang's Akto County that happened less than 15 days ago.

"Because the earthquake generally occurred at the seismic belt of the Tianshan Mountains, and the Akto earthquake occurred at the intersection of the seismic belts of the western Kunlun Mountains and the southern Tianshan Mountains, far from this one, there are no direct relations between the two earthquakes," said Pan Huaiwen, the director of the China Earthquake Networks Center.
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