Latest: More than 160 Dead, 6,700 Injured in China Earthquake

An aerial view shows houses damaged after a strong earthquake in Lushan county, Ya'an, Sichuan province

The death toll from a powerful earthquake Saturday in southwest China's Sichuan province has climbed to more than 160 people, with more than 6,700 injured.

China's official Xinhua news agency says President Xi Jinping has ordered all-out measures to rescue victims and minimize casualties following the disaster.

Chinese officials called it a 7.0-magnitude quake, while the U.S. Geological Survey put the strength at 6.6. The quake occurred at a depth of 13 kilometers.

Aerial photos released by China's military and aired on state television showed individual houses in ruins and some stretches of the county seat and villages flattened into rubble.

Disaster: 113 Dead, 2,600 Injured in China Earthquake

Chinese state media say the death toll from a powerful earthquake that struck the western region of Sichuan Saturday morning has climbed to at least 113 people, with about 2,600 injured

China's official Xinhua news agency said that the death toll could rise as search and rescue teams make their way into the affected areas.

State media say hard-hit parts of Lushan country remain unreachable by road, with phone services cut off.  Aerial photos released by China's military and shown on state television showed individual houses in ruins and some stretches of the county seat and villages flattened into rubble.

China's premier, Li Keqiang, has flown to the region to oversee relief efforts.

Sichuan's provincial seismological bureau put the strength of the quake at 7.0, while the U.S. Geological Survey said it was 6.6 magnitude, which is capable of causing severe damage.  The quake occurred at a depth of 12 kilometers.

Xinhua said the quake also rattled buildings in the provincial capital, Chengdu, 115 kilometers to the east.

A strong earthquake struck Sichuan in 2008, killing more than 70,000 people.

H7N9 Bird Flu Death Toll Rises to 8

Another person has died in China of the new bird flu, H7N9,  bringing the death toll to eight, according to China's Xinhua Agency. Twenty others have been infected, all of them in eastern China.

The latest victim was an 83-year-old from Jiangsu who was admitted to a hospital with a fever March 20, according to Reuters, which attributed the information to Xinhua.

Close contacts of the H7N9 patients have been monitored, according to the World Health Organization’s latest update.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is already working on a vaccine, using the virus’s genetic code  rather than the virus itself, a first for the agency, according to Nancy Cox, head of the CDC’s influenza division.

Although H7N9 is more easily transmittable from birds to humans than H1N1, Cox said she expects to see limited human-to-human transmission.

Since H7N9 is not as deadly to birds as it is to humans, it will be harder to track because there won’t be large bird kill-offs, Cox said.

The big concern is could this become the next pandemic strain?” I hope not