China on Monday deployed soldiers to assist rescue and relief operations in Xinjiang region where a devastating earthquake killed at least 258 people, including school children, and injured over 1,000, an official report said in Beijing.

The earthquake occurred at 0733 IST and hit the area located between 39.5 degrees north latitude and 77.2 degrees east longitude, according to the China Seismological Bureau.

Officials of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region said it was difficult to give precise figures for the injured since the numbers kept rising.

Xinjiang in the northwestern part accounts for about one-eighth of China's territory but is sparsely populated with about 20 million people living in the region.

Police and soldiers from the People's Liberation Army have rushed to the area, known to be quake-prone, to carry out rescue efforts. Relief materials are also on the way, Xinhua news agency reported from Urum.

A number of senior officials from the central and regional governments have flown to the disaster area to direct the rescue work.

Chinese Vice Premier Wen Jiabao has issued instructions to the government at all levels to provide emergency assistance to the affected people, a report said.

The regional government has established an emergency base to provide relief to the quake-hit area, about 2,900km west of Beijing.

More than 1,000 houses and school buildings have collapsed in a village in Bachu county, the epicenter of the earthquake that measured 6.8 on the Richter scale.

The quake is the most serious in the region since 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded.

Several other places in the region, including Jiashi county, Kashi city, Bachu county, Artux county and Markit county, also felt strong tremors.

China experienced the worst earthquake in modern history in 1976, when a quake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale hit the northern city of Tangshan, killing at least 240,000 people.