Beijing — A powerful earthquake killed at least 53 people in Tibet on Tuesday and left many others trapped as dozens of aftershocks rattled areas in western China and across the border in Nepal.
The official Xinhua news agency said another 62 people were injured, citing the regional disaster relief headquarters.
About 1,500 firefighters and rescuers were engaged in the search for people in the ruins, the Ministry of Emergency Management announced.
Xinhua via AP
The US Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 7.1 and was relatively shallow at a depth of about 6 miles. China recorded a magnitude of 6.8.
The epicenter was about 50 miles northeast of Mount Everest, which crosses the border. The area is seismically active and is where the Indian and Eurasian plates collide and cause uplifts in the Himalayan mountains strong enough to change the height of some of the world’s highest peaks.
The average elevation in the area around the epicenter is about 4,200 meters (13,800 feet), the China Earthquake Network Center said in a social media post.
State broadcaster CCTV said there were a handful of communities within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the epicenter, which was 380 kilometers (240 miles) from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and about 23 kilometers (14 miles) from another region in the region. the largest city of Shigatse, known as Xigaze in Chinese.
About 140 miles away in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, the quake woke residents and sent them running from their homes into the streets. No information was currently available from remote, mountainous areas of Nepal closer to the epicenter.
There have been 10 earthquakes of at least magnitude 6 in the past century in the area hit by Tuesday’s quake, the USGS said.
