"Funding for disaster relief has been hit by the SARS crisis with money being diverted to prevent the virus from spreading," said a Yuepuhu county communist party official surnamed Li in Xinjiang region.

He said tents, food and drugs were in short supply but stressed that local authorities were doing all they could with the means at their disposal.

"Nearly all officials of the county have gone to the villages to lead the rescue operations," he said.

"Lots of tents have been set up for the victims but there is still a lack of tents.

"The water supply went down but we got it working again. The electricity is okay. We adopted emergency measures very quickly because we had experience from the last earthquake."

The earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale toppled 1,600 houses and damaged thousands more when it struck late Sunday in a part of the country devastated by a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in February.

The epicenter, at Yopurga township, was barely 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) south of the area levelled by the powerful quake on February 24, leaving 268 people dead and 4,000 injured.

Local seismological officials said some 200 aftershocks had been felt since Sunday but that only person was dead from the tremor.

Another local official said it was unlikely anyone would still be buried and the death toll was not expected to rise.

"Around 400 to 500 rescue personnel have been sent to the area hit by the earthquake to carry out rescue work," said Tang Xuezhang, a government official from Jiashi county.

"Almost everyone is living in tents still from the last earthquake, even the county government is doing business from a tent, so there is very little chance anyone will still be buried."

According to official statistics, Xinjiang, which is populated by Turkic-speaking ethnic Uighur Muslims, only has one suspected case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

The region is tightly monitored by Chinese authorities for separatist activities by Uighurs.

SPACE.WIRE