By Isabel KUA/AFP – A devastating earthquake in China’s distant Tibet area killed at the least 53 individuals and collapsed “many buildings” on 7 January, state media reported, with tremors additionally felt in neighbouring Nepal’s capital Kathmandu and components of India.
Movies printed by China’s state broadcaster CCTV confirmed homes destroyed with partitions torn aside.
Rescue staff waded by way of rubble strewn throughout the ruins within the aftermath of the earthquake, footage confirmed, whereas some gave locals thick blankets to maintain heat.
Surveillance photos printed by CCTV confirmed individuals operating by way of a retailer’s aisles as cabinets shook violently, sending objects like toys tumbling to the bottom.
Within the city of Lhatse, movies geolocated by AFP confirmed particles scattered in entrance of streetside eateries.
The highly effective quake struck Dingri county with a magnitude of 6.8 close to the border with Nepal at 9:05 am (0105 GMT), based on the China Earthquake Networks Middle (CENC). The US Geological Survey reported the tremor as magnitude 7.1.
“Fifty-three individuals have been confirmed lifeless and 62 injured as of Tuesday midday, after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake jolted Dingri County within the metropolis of Xigaze in Xizang Autonomous Area at 9:05 am Tuesday,” Xinhua information company stated.
Over 1,000 homes have sustained various levels of harm, it added.
“Dingri county and its surrounding areas skilled very sturdy tremors, and plenty of buildings close to the epicentre have collapsed,” state broadcaster CCTV stated.
Chinese language President Xi Jinping on Tuesday emphasised “the full-scale search and rescue efforts, minimizing casualties to the best extent potential, correctly resettling affected residents, and making certain their security and heat by way of the winter”, CCTV added.
Xinhua stated that “native authorities are reaching out to numerous townships within the county to evaluate the affect of the quake”.
Temperatures in Dingri are round minus 8 levels Celsius (17.6 levels Fahrenheit) and can drop to minus 18 this night, based on the China Meteorological Administration.
Catastrophe aid support, together with cotton tents, quilts and objects for high-altitude and frigid areas, had been dispatched by central authorities to areas impacted by the quake, Xinhua stated.
The high-altitude county within the Tibet area is residence to round 62,000 individuals and located on the Chinese language facet of Mount Everest.
Whereas earthquakes are frequent within the area, Tuesday’s quake was probably the most highly effective recorded inside a 200-kilometre radius within the final 5 years, the CENC added.
‘Shook fairly strongly’
In addition to Kathmandu, areas round Lobuche in Nepal within the excessive mountains close to Everest have been additionally rattled by the tremor and aftershocks.
“It shook fairly strongly right here, everyone seems to be awake,” stated authorities official Jagat Prasad Bhusal in Nepal’s Namche area, which lies nearer to Everest.
However no injury or deaths had been reported up to now and safety forces had been deployed, Nepali Residence Minister spokesman Rishi Ram Tiwari stated.
Nepal lies on a significant geological faultline the place the Indian tectonic plate pushes up into the Eurasian plate, forming the Himalayas, and earthquakes are a daily prevalence.
In 2015, almost 9,000 individuals died and greater than 22,000 have been injured when a 7.8-magnitude quake struck Nepal, destroying greater than half one million properties.
Some tremors have been felt in Bihar state in India however no accidents have been reported.
Three individuals have been killed and dozens injured after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck alongside the mountainous China-Kyrgyzstan border in January final yr.
A quake in December 2023 in northwest China killed 148 individuals and displaced 1000’s in Gansu province.
That quake was China’s deadliest since 2014, when greater than 600 individuals have been killed in southwestern Yunnan province.
Within the December 2023 earthquake, subzero temperatures made the help operation launched in response much more difficult, with survivors huddled round out of doors fires to maintain heat.
© Agence France-Presse
