Apple has donated 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) to support relief efforts in China following the major earthquake in the country’s Yunnan Province earlier this week.

The 6.5-magnitude earthquake is the worst disaster to have hit the area in a century, and resulted in the deaths of 615 people. A further 2,400 were injured in the quake, while rescuers have evacuated 230,000 further people, who are now displaced from their home.

Apple has updated its Chinese homepage to reflect the disaster, and Tim Cook personally sent out an email to Apple employees noting that the company is eager to hit with relief efforts.

Apple has donated ¥50 million ($8 million) to those affected by the recent earthquake in China’s Sichuan province. The Cupertino company made an announcement on its Chinese website, which was accompanied by a message of condolence that pledges support for locals and schools.

We’re all excited about Notification Center, Twitter integration, iMessage, and all the other wonderful features that will come with iOS 5 later this year. But for Japanese users there’s one feature that may be far more useful than tweeting a picture of your cat directly from your camera roll: quake alert warnings.

Apple is offering free repairs to those with Macs and iOS devices who had their equipment damaged in the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan back in March.

This is great. Japanese games giant Capcom has slashed the price of Street Fighter IV for iOS to just one dollar (59p in the UK) until March 22nd. Sega is doing something similar for Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 2.

Every penny from those sales will be donated to relief funds for the victims of the Japanese tsunami and earthquake. Street Fighter has already knocked Tiny Wings off the top of the UK Top 25 list as a result.

Capcom says: “We can never thank you enough for all the support each one of you are giving to us. People from all over the world, please unite with us to help people in the disaster-struck area.”

You heard ’em, kids. Grab your bargains now, and send a dollar to help people who need it.

Here’s an astonishing post from Kevin Rose, publishing an (anoymized) email from a friend of his who works for Apple in Japan.