Kim Hjelmgaard

USA TODAY

A powerful magnitude-6.8 earthquake struck central Myanmar on Wednesday, killing at least four people and damaging buildings and ancient monuments, authorities said.

The quake's epicenter was located in an area west of the ancient capital Bagan and took place about 52 miles below the Earth's surface, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Deep quakes typically cause less damage than shallow ones.

The quake came on the same day that another measuring magnitude-6.2 struck central Italy, killing more than 100 people.

Tremors from the Myanmar quake were felt as far away as India and Thailand.

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Bagan is home to 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries, and at least 185 brick pagodas were damaged, the state newspaper reported

A fire department official from regional capital Magwe told Reuters that two young girls were killed when a riverbank gave way in Yenanchaung township. Another person died when a tobacco processing factory collapsed in the town of Pakkoku, officials told the news agency.

"My house shook during the quake. Many people were scared and they ran out of the buildings," Maung Maung Kyaw, a local official of the ruling National League for Democracy, told Reuters. "Some of the old buildings have cracks. The biggest damage is to the bank building in the town. The damage to other buildings isn't that significant."