A magnitude 6 earthquake has hit southwest China, injuring more than 300 people and causing 10,000 homes to collapse, state media says.

Thursday evening's quake, centred in Yunnan province's Yao'an county, damaged another 30,000 homes, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Thirty people suffered severe injuries, while the other 305 were slightly injured, it said, adding that eight aftershocks were recorded.

Reporting from Urumqi, Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan said no confirmation of any deaths were coming through yet and officials would probably take some time to get information out of the relatively remote area.

But she said national officials should be better prepared for disasters following a quake in Sichuan last year that left almost 90,000 people dead or missing.

The authorities said they were sending 4,500 tents, 3,000 quilts and other relief materials to Yao'an along with hundreds of policemen.

The US Geological Survey said the a 5.7 magnitude quake struck at 7:19pm (11:19 GMT) on Thursday at a depth of 10km and was centred 98km east-northeast of the city of Dali.

Yunnan is a quake-prone, mountainous region that lies on China's southern border with Thailand and Myanmar.

It also borders Sichuan province, which was devastated by the magnitude-7.9 quake last year.