Yesterday at 4:31 pm, a strong aftershock registering 5.6 in magnitude hit southern Sichuan near Panzhihua 24 hours and one minute after Saturday's 6.1-magnitude earthquake in the same location. Once again, the tremor was able to be felt in buildings as far south as Kunming.

According to the most recent Xinhua reports, 32 people died in Saturday's quake, more than 400 were injured and over 100,000 homes were destroyed or damaged.

No information has been made available regarding casualties or damage from Sunday's aftershock. More than 800,000 people have been affected by the quakes.

According to Chinese media reports, the areas most affected by the quakes include Panzhihua, Huili and Liangshan in Sichuan and Zhaotong, Chuxiong and Dali.

UPDATE: As of 6:30 pm Beijing time on Monday, Xinhua is reporting that 38 people have been confirmed dead from the quake.

Related article: Earthquake rattles Sichuan, Yunnan provinces

The Yunnan Provincial Hygiene Department announced that as of noon on Monday, 113 cases of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) had been diagnosed in Yunnan, apparently caused by intestinal virus Enterovirus 71 (EV71). The announcement comes one day after Kunming announced that all Kindergarten students would be checked for the disease.

59 of the reported cases, more than half of the provincial total, were diagnosed in Kunming. Other affected areas include Chuxiong (19 cases), Yuxi (13), Baoshan (12), Dali (5), Honghe (3) and Zhaotong and Lincang, which reported one case each. No deaths have been reported.

Although highly contagious among children, HFMD has a low fatality rate and is expected to be contained well before the Olympics. With SARS still in people's minds and the Olympics around the corner, the Chinese government has shown a greater degree of openness and transparency at both the central and local levels than with previous outbreaks.

As Jeremy Goldkorn at Danwei puts it:

"Despite foreign cable news reports screaming about a 'deadly' virus, the virus is treatable and not that deadly. On the other hand, Xinhua and CCTV have not shied away from reporting about the disease, a welcome change from the days of SARS in 2003, when a disease outbreak was treated as something to be ashamed of and covered up."

Related article:

Kindergartens to check for hand, foot and mouth disease

The recent mild weather in Kunming and elsewhere in Yunnan will be short-lived, according to the Yunnan Meteorological Station, which is predicting a drop of 10 to 15 degrees Celsius and wet weather for most of the province, beginning in the latter half of this week.

The collision of a cold front from the north with the warm, wet air over much of Yunnan in recent days is expected to cause a 10-degree drop in temperatures in northern areas of the province today, including Qujing and Zhaotong. Cities in central Yunnan including Kunming and Yuxi are expected to take an approximately 10-degree temperature hit on Wednesday.

Accompanying the temperature drops will be another round of precipitation, with some snow expected in Diqing and Zhaotong.

Yunnan province is planning on spending as much as five billion yuan (US$625 million) over the next decade to assist farmers in rebuilding or strengthening their homes in anticipation of future earthquakes, according to a ChinaGate report.

Yunnan Vice Governor Luo Zhengfu was cited in the report as saying one million homes would be subsidized in the province, where 56 have died and more than 2,100 have been injured in the 21 earthquakes here since 2000. Rural homes around Kunming and Zhaotong in Yunnan's northeast will be among the domiciles targeted.

Yunnan is home to the Xiaojiang fault line, which runs through the Dali and Lijiang autonomous prefectures and is only a little more than 30 kilometers from Kunming. In 1970, the fault was the source of a major tremor that registered at 7.7 and caused significant damage to the city. The most powerful recorded earthquake in Kunming was an 8.0 in 1833 that leveled the city.

Dali and Lijiang have both been hit by tremors in recent years, most seriously in the case of Lijiang in 1996, which caused serious damage to the city's old town. There are plans to build the world's #second-largest dam at Tiger Leaping Gorge, near Lijiang and the Xiaojiang fault.

Households that are determined to be eligible for subsidies will receive 3,000 to 5,000 yuan (US$370-$625), according to the number of people living in those households. Aid recipients will also be provided technical assistance on reinforcement and rebuilding work. The project is modeled after a pilot project implemented on 1,000 homes in Zhaotong last year.