Dozens of individuals have been killed and a whole bunch of buildings have been toppled after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck a area close to one in every of Tibet’s holiest cities, near the Himalayan border with Nepal on Tuesday. Tremors have been felt in Nepal.
The quake struck shortly after 9 a.m. at a depth of 6.2 miles in Dingri County in Tibet, Chinese language state media reported. The state-run information company Xinhua stated a minimum of 53 folks had died and that rescue groups have been deployed to find extra victims. Xinhua printed video of police eradicating rubble and lifting particles.
China’s state broadcaster reported that greater than 1,000 homes had collapsed in Dingri County.
A number of aftershocks have been felt within the space, together with in Nepal. The quake had a magnitude of seven.1, in line with america Geological Survey, although it was measured as 6.8 by the China Earthquake Networks Heart.
The closest metropolis to the earthquake’s epicenter was Shigatse, the second-largest metropolis in Tibet, with a inhabitants of 640,000. Shigatse is thought to be a holy website because the seat of the Panchen Lama, one of the senior figures in Tibetan Buddhism.
A vacationer not removed from Shigatse who spoke to The Instances stated she was in her lodge room when the earthquake began shaking her constructing. She stated the electrical energy went out and that she and a good friend squatted between the beds. When the shaking stopped, they ran out of the constructing.
The vacationer, who solely have her surname, Xu, shared a video exhibiting a number of single-story brick buildings with collapsed partitions.
The Himalayan area is susceptible to highly effective earthquakes. In 2015, a quake in Nepal with a magnitude of seven.8 killed almost 9,000 folks. In Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, residents streamed out of their houses within the morning because the earthquake rattled buildings.
“Primarily based on the magnitude of the earthquake, there might be some damages in mountains of japanese Nepal,” stated Lok Bijaya Adhikari, a senior seismologist at Nepal’s Nationwide Earthquake Monitoring and Analysis Heart.
Most residents from Nepal’s excessive mountain areas equivalent to Everest, Makalu, Rolwaling and Kanchenjunga have migrated to lowland areas to keep away from the intense chilly of winter.
“Though most individuals migrate to decrease land throughout winter season, some are nonetheless there,” stated Ang Tshering Sherpa, the previous chief of the Nepal Mountaineering Affiliation. “There’s at all times danger of avalanche and glacial lake outburst floods after earthquakes.”
Berry Wang contributed reporting.
