A powerful earthquake that occurred on Tuesday January 7 in the Himalayan region of Tibet, in southwest China, killed at least 93 people and caused the collapse of “many buildings”an earthquake felt as far away as neighboring Nepal.
The 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Dingri township, located near the Sino-Nepal border, at 9:05 a.m. (01:05 GMT), according to China’s national earthquake agency (CENC). The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported a magnitude of 7.1.
Videos broadcast by Chinese public television CCTV show white-colored homes, at high altitude, with gutted walls and collapsed roofs, with stones littering the ground.
Other images from the channel show vehicles buried under bricks or customers of a convenience store fleeing the store when the earthquake causes products on the shelves to fall to the ground.
Firefighters in orange uniforms arrived at the scene of the disaster, amid rubble and near survivors and elderly people wrapped in blankets, according to CCTV videos.
“Fifty-three people died and 130 others were injured”indicated the official Xinhua news agency. A previous provisional report reported 32 deaths.
“The tremors were very strongly felt in and around the canton of Dingri and many buildings collapsed near the epicenter”CCTV said.
Freezing temperatures
The epicenter of the earthquake was about 370 km southwest of the regional capital Lhasa, according to CENC data.
Xinhua reported that local authorities were visiting the various communes of the canton “in order to assess the repercussions of the earthquake”.
This high altitude canton has around 62,000 inhabitants and is located not far from the Chinese side of Everest.
Temperatures there are around -8°C during the day and could drop to -18°C tonight, according to China’s National Meteorological Bureau.
While earthquakes are common in the region, Tuesday’s quake was the most powerful recorded within a 200-kilometer radius in the last five years, the CENC said.
Murderous precedents
In Nepal, the earthquake, which was felt as far as the capital Kathmandu, struck areas around Namche and Lobuche, very close to Everest base camp.
“It shook quite hard here, everyone is awake but we are not aware of any damage at the moment”said Jagat Prasad Bhusal, an official in the Namche region in northeastern Nepal.
The Himalayas lie on the divide between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates and experience regular seismic activity.
In 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people and injured more than 22,000 in Nepal, destroying more than 500,000 homes.
An earthquake in December 2023 left 148 dead and thousands homeless in the Chinese province of Gansu (northwest).
The earthquake was the deadliest in China since 2014, when more than 600 people were killed in the country’s southwest province of Yunnan.
