The death toll from a powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake in a mountainous Tibetan region that caused massive tremors in Nepal, Bhutan and India on Tuesday morning soared to 53.
The earthquake, which struck at 9.05am local time, was centred in Tibet’s Tingri County in Xigaze City at a depth of about 10km, the US Geological Survey reported. The epicenter was in the rural Chinese county known as the northern gateway to the Everest region. China’s earthquake centre had placed the magnitude at 6.8.
Nearly 62 others have been reported injured on the Tibetan side, China’s state-run news agency Xinhua reported.
Chinese president Xi Jinping said all-out search and rescue efforts should be carried out to minimise casualties, properly resettle the affected people, and ensure a safe and warm winter.
Videos showed crumbled shops in the aftermath from the nearby town of Lhatse, with debris spilling out onto the road.
“It shook quite strongly here, everyone is awake, but we don’t know about any damages yet,” government official Jagat Prasad Bhusal in Nepal’s Namche region told AFP.
Mount Everest sightseeing tours in Tingri, where foreign climbers come to prepare for ascend, have been cancelled for Tuesday morning, according to a tourism staff member who spoke to local media. They also confirmed that the sightseeing area has been completely closed.
The tremors were felt in India, Bhutan and Bangladesh, forcing people to step out of their houses. So far, India, Nepal and Bhutan have reported no casualties from the earthquake.
Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) said the tremors were felt in seven hill districts bordering Tibet.
“So far we have not received any information of any loss of life and property,” NDRRMA spokesperson Dizan Bhattarai told Reuters. “We have mobilised police, security forces and local authorities to collect information,” he said.
“A reporter learned from the Tibet Autonomous Region earthquake bureau that people have been killed, involving three townships including Changsuo township, Quluo township, and Cuoguo township in Dingri County,” Xinhua news agency reported. It added many buildings had collapsed in Tingri County following the quake.
Tremors were felt in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu some 400km away from the epicenter, where residents ran from their houses.
“We felt a very strong earthquake. So far we have not received any report of injuries or physical loss,” said Anoj Raj Ghimire, chief district officer of Solukhumbu district in Nepal.
“We have mobilised police and other security forces as well as locals to collect information about the damage,” he told Reuters.
The epicenter was located where the Indian and Eurasian plates clashed and caused uplifts in the Himalayan mountains strong enough to change the heights of some of the world’s tallest peaks.
There are about a handful of communities within 5km of the epicentre, which is 380km from the Tibetan capital, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
There have been 29 earthquakes with magnitudes of 3 or higher within 200km of the Shigatse quake in the past five years, all of which were smaller than the one that struck on Tuesday morning.
In November 2023, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake shook northwestern Nepal, killing at least 138 people and injuring dozens.
In 2015, a magnitude 7.8 quake struck near Kathmandu in neighbouring Nepal, killing about 9,000 people and injuring thousands in that country’s worst earthquake
A huge quake in Sichuan province in southwestern China in 2008 killed almost 70,000 people.
