Over 120 people dead in Tibet due to strong earthquake in isolated area

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A devastating earthquake in China’s remote Tibet region has killed at least 126 people and caused thousands of houses to collapse, state media reported, with tremors also felt in neighbouring Nepal’s capital Kathmandu and parts of India.

The quake struck rural, high-altitude Tingri county, about 80km north of Mount Everest near China’s border with Nepal, at around 9am local time (12pm AEDT) on Tuesday.

At least 126 people have been confirmed dead and 188 others injured, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Twenty-eight people in critical condition were transferred to hospital for treatment, and more than 3,000 houses had collapsed, it added.

The China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) measured the quake’s magnitude as 6.8, while the US Geological Survey reported it as 7.1.

The area most affected is surrounded by mountainous terrain on the Chinese side of Mount Everest.

The epicentre of the earthquake was recorded at around 177 kilometres southwest of Shigatse, Tibet and according to the USGS, hit at a depth of 10 kilometres. Source: Supplied / USGS

Buildings ‘cracked open’

Tingri, the epicentre, is home to around 62,000 people, and is much less developed than urban centres like Tibet’s capital Lhasa.

Many of the fallen houses appeared to be constructed using traditional materials such as stone, mud bricks and wooden beams.

“Here the houses are made from dirt so when the earthquake came … lots of houses collapsed,” said 34-year-old Sangji Dangzhi, whose supermarket in Tingri suffered considerable damage.

When tourist Meng Lingkang arrived in the town of Lhatse, 65km from the epicentre, “the buildings had cracked open”.

“Some of the older houses collapsed, and a large part of the buildings made from bricks had cracked open, with big fissures,” Meng said.

Thousands of rescuers dispatched

CCTV, citing the emergency command centre, reported that the earthquake emergency response status in the region was raised to the highest level.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for “all-out search and rescue efforts”, the state broadcaster said.

Authorities said more than 3,400 rescuers and over 340 medical workers had been deployed.

Aid including cotton tents, quilts and cold-weather equipment had been dispatched by central authorities, state news agency Xinhua said.

Tingri is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Shigatse, home to the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, one of the most important spiritual figures in Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader who fled his homeland in 1959 after it was taken over by China, said he was deeply saddened.

“I offer my prayers for those who have lost their lives and extend my wishes for a swift recovery to all who have been injured,” the exiled spiritual leader said in a statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron offered assistance to those affected, while Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his “sincerest condolences”. –

Tents lined up at Mount Everest base camp

The high-altitude county in the Tibet region is situated on the Chinese side of Mount Everest. Source: AP / AP

As well as Kathmandu, areas around Lobuche — in the high mountains near Everest in Nepal — were also rattled by the tremor and aftershocks.

“It shook quite strongly here,” said government official Jagat Prasad Bhusal in Namche region, which lies closer to Everest.

Security forces had been deployed but no damage or deaths had been reported so far, Nepali home ministry spokesman Rishi Ram Tiwari said.

Nepal lies on a major geological faultline where the Indian tectonic plate pushes up into the Eurasian plate, forming the Himalayas, and earthquakes are a regular occurrence.

In 2015, nearly 9,000 people died and more than 22,000 were injured when a 7.8-magnitude quake struck Nepal, destroying more than half a million homes.

Some tremors were felt in Bihar state in India but no injuries were reported.

Tuesday’s quake was the most powerful recorded within a 200km radius in the last five years, the CENC said.

A quake in December 2023 in northwest China killed 148 people and displaced thousands in Gansu province.