The powerful tremor was followed by “multiple aftershocks” this Tuesday, January 7, the largest being magnitude 4.4.
A provisional and already dramatic assessment. A powerful earthquake that occurred this Tuesday, January 7 in the Himalayan region of Tibet, in southwest China, left at least 53 dead, 62 injured and caused the collapse of “numerous buildings”, an earthquake felt until 'in neighboring Nepal.
The 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck the sparsely populated Dingri township, located near the China-Nepal border, at 9:05 a.m., according to China's National Earthquake Agency (CENC).
The American Geological Survey (USGS) for its part reported an earthquake of magnitude 7.1 in the region.
Replicas
Videos broadcast by Chinese public television CCTV show white-colored homes at high altitude, with gutted walls and collapsed roofs, with numerous stones littering the ground.
Other images from the channel show firefighters in helmets and orange outfits heading towards the scene of the disaster, or even SUVs in a street, buried under bricks from the affected buildings.
“The tremors were very strongly felt in and around Dingri canton and many buildings collapsed near the epicenter,” CCTV said.
She reported “multiple aftershocks” since Tuesday morning, the largest being magnitude 4.4.
Freezing temperatures
Xinhua reported that local authorities were visiting the canton's various communes “to assess the repercussions of the earthquake.”
Temperatures there are around -8°C during the day and could drop to -18°C tonight, according to China's National Meteorological Bureau. This high altitude canton has around 62,000 inhabitants and is located not far from the Chinese side of Everest.
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.
In Nepal, in addition to Kathmandu, the areas around Namche and Lobuche, very close to the Everest base camp, were also hit by the earthquake and its aftershocks.
Precedents
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.
A major earthquake occurred in December 2023 in northwest China and left 148 dead and thousands homeless in Gansu province (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.
