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A strong earthquake killed at least 53 people in Tibet on Tuesday and left many others trapped as dozens of aftershocks shook the region of western China and across the border in Nepal.
The official Xinhua News Agency said 62 other people were injured, citing the regional disaster relief headquarters.
About 1500 fire and rescue workers were deployed to search for people in the rubble, the Ministry of Emergency Management said.
The US Geological Survey said the earthquake measured magnitude 7.1 and was relatively shallow at a depth of about 10km. China recorded the magnitude as 6.8.
The epicentre was about 75km north-east of Mount Everest, which straddles the border. The area is seismically active and is where the India and Eurasia plates clash and cause uplifts in the Himalayan mountains strong enough to change the heights of some of the world’s tallest peaks.
About 50 aftershocks were recorded in the three hours after the earthquake, and the Mount Everest scenic area on the Chinese side was closed after the quake.
About 1500 fire and rescue workers were deployed to search for people, the Ministry of Emergency Management said. Some 200 soldiers joined the search, CCTV said.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for all-out efforts to rescue people, minimise casualties and resettle those whose homes were damaged. Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing was dispatched to the area to guide the work.
A police officer in Solukhumbu district, where Mount Everest is located, said by telephone that there were no reports of damage. The area, often crowded with climbers and hikers, was empty in the depth of winter. Many residents move to the south to avoid the harsh winter.
The average altitude in the area around the epicentre is about 4200m, the China Earthquake Networks Center said in a social media post.
State broadcaster CCTV said there are a handful of communities within 5km of the epicentre, which was 380km from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and about 23km from the region’s second-largest city of Shigatse, known as Xigaze in Chinese.
About 230km away in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, the earthquake woke up residents and sent them running out of their homes into the streets. No information was immediately available from the remote, mountainous areas of Nepal closer to the epicenter.
There have been 10 earthquakes of at least magnitude 6 in the area where Tuesday’s quake hit over the past century, the USGS said.
