Tibet Quake Leaves 16 Dead and 339 Homes Ruined
Rescue crews in Nagqu face snow and rockfalls while clearing rubble from the magnitude 7.0 earthquake.
By Mei Ling ·
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck northern Tibet on Thursday night, killing at least 16 people and injuring 54.
The tremor hit at 10:33 p.m. local time, with its epicenter located 119 miles east-northeast of the regional city of Nagqu, according to the US Geological Survey. The quake occurred at a depth of 11 miles in a sparsely populated, high-altitude area. The agency recorded at least seven aftershocks ranging from magnitude 4.3 to 5.2 in the following hours.
Local officials confirmed that 339 homes and 20 livestock sheds collapsed. China's national broadcaster CCTV identified this as the region's strongest quake in five years. Footage from the scene showed residents fleeing restaurants and rescuers navigating buildings with collapsed roofs.
More than 1,600 workers from the local county were deployed to assist with search and rescue operations. Xinhua reported that over 300 police officers and nearly 350 fire and rescue personnel joined the effort. Aid supplies included 1,000 prefabricated housing units, 3,000 tents, folding beds, torches, and winter clothing.
Communication lines failed in some affected zones, prompting local railway authorities to halt train traffic through the region. A rockfall closed a section of national highway 317, restricting access to emergency and support vehicles only. Snow was forecast for the next three days, complicating recovery work.
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for an all-out effort in the rescue and medical relief work. Nagqu sits more than 185 miles north of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. The region experiences frequent seismic activity, including a January 2025 quake in Tingri county that killed 126 people and a December 2023 event in Gansu province that claimed at least 134 lives.
Tibet, brought under Chinese control in the 1950s, remains one of the country's poorest regions. The area is seismically active, and recent floods in August obscured the scale of damage on the Tibetan side of the Nepal border due to limited international media access.
Source: The Guardian
