At least 16 people killed by powerful earthquake in Tibet

More than a dozen people were killed and hundreds of homes destroyed when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit China’s Tibet region on Thursday evening local time, according to local officials.

The United States Geological Survey said the quake occurred at 10:33 p.m. local time, with its epicenter 119 miles east-northeast of Nagqu, in a sparsely populated, high-altitude area of northern Tibet. 

At least 16 people were killed and 54 people were injured in the earthquake, Chinese state media said. 

Search and rescue efforts continued following the collapse of at least 339 homes and 20 livestock sheds, the Nagqu media office said, citing city government officials. Among the injured, 11 people were in serious condition and the other 35 sustained minor injuries, the media office said.

More than 1,600 people from the local county were deployed for rescue efforts. Supplies including 1,000 prefabricated housing units, around 3,000 tents and folding beds, as well as flashlights and winter clothing arrived in the region.

It was the biggest earthquake in the region in the last five years, China’s national broadcaster CCTV said.

Nagqu is more than 186 miles north of Tibet’s capital, Lhasa.

The USGS put the earthquake’s depth at 11 miles. Xinhua, citing the China Earthquake Networks Center, put the depth at 6.2 miles. 

The earthquake comes less than two months after a border region of Nepal and Tibet was struck by devastating flash flooding that left hundreds of people dead and destroyed several communities. Authorities said the flooding was caused by the collapse of a glacier.