A powerful earthquake in Tibet on Tuesday claimed the lives of at least 53 people and left many others trapped, as numerous aftershocks were felt across western China and Nepal.
The regional disaster relief headquarters, via the official Xinhua News Agency, reported that 62 others sustained injuries, UNB reports.
Approximately 1,500 fire and rescue workers have been deployed to search for survivors among the rubble, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported the earthquake at a magnitude of 7.1 with a shallow depth of around 10 kilometers (6 miles), while Chinese authorities recorded it as 6.8. The epicenter was situated roughly 75 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Mount Everest, in a region where the collision of the India and Eurasia tectonic plates frequently causes seismic activity and uplifts in the Himalayan mountains.
The China Earthquake Networks Center noted that the average altitude near the epicenter is approximately 4,200 meters (13,800 feet). State broadcaster CCTV indicated that a few communities are located within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the epicenter, which lies 380 kilometers (240 miles) from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and 23 kilometers (14 miles) from Shigatse, Tibet's second-largest city, also called Xigaze in Chinese.
In Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, about 230 kilometers (140 miles) from the epicenter, residents were awakened by the quake and rushed outdoors. However, there was no immediate information from the remote mountainous areas of Nepal closer to the quake’s origin.
The U.S. Geological Survey stated that over the past century, there have been 10 earthquakes of at least magnitude 6 in the area where this latest earthquake struck.
