This Tuesday, January 7, at 9:05 a.m. local time, the earth shook violently in the Chinese province of Tibet. The earthquake, measuring 7.1 magnitude according to the USGS (United States Geological Survey), mainly affected the Tonglai region, on the north slope of Everest. The epicenter is thus located only 80 kilometers from the famous summit.
The videos circulating show significant damage, with many houses destroyed. The human toll is severe, with already nearly a hundred deaths according to The Worldand certainly several hundred injured.
The urgency of finding survivors and protecting the homeless from the cold
Emergency services are hard at work finding survivors under the rubble. Time is of the essence, knowing that in this high altitude region located between 4,000 and 5,000 meters, temperatures currently remain negative and drop severely during the night. Tents and blankets were sent to the affected region to protect the now homeless populations from the cold.
Around 6,900 people would have been impacted by the earthquake and its numerous aftershocks.
A region located at the interface between two colliding tectonic plates
Earthquakes are frequent in the Himalayan range, which marks the suture between two colliding continents: India and Eurasia. This convergence is at the origin of the uplift of the Himalayas. The accommodation of this enormous tectonic thrust is therefore done through an uplift and movementsmovements along numerous faults. In this case, the earthquake appears to have been generated at shallow depth (only 10 kilometers) by slippage on a normal fault.
Several earthquakes magnitudemagnitude greater than 7 have thus been recorded over the last decades along this limit of tectonic platestectonic plates. The most powerful being that of 1934, with a magnitude of 8.0. In 2015, a seismic doublet also hit the Nepal region. The tremors – of magnitude 7.8 and 7.3 respectively – then caused very significant damage and the death of 8,669 people.
