Eight people were also injured when the 5.6 magnitude quake struck at 2:03 a.m. local time near the city of Mianzhu.
The country’s national seismological network said the shaking damaged more than 8,000 homes in Mianzhu.
Telephone service in the region was briefly disrupted following the earthquake, which was followed by a 5.0 magnitude jolt at 3:22 p.m., along with several other tremors.
The Tuesday afternoon quake was centered between Mianzhu and the nearby city of Shifang.
Those two cities were among the hardest-hit by a devastating 8.0 magnitude temblor that shook Sichuan on May 12 last year.
Seismologists say the two minutes of horrific shaking that razed entire towns then was caused by two distinct shifts of the Longmenshan Fault, which stretches southwest to northeast across Sichuan. It has also been responsible for ongoing tremors over the past year.