Hong Kong
CNN
—
At least 53 people have been killed after a powerful earthquake struck a remote region of Tibet on Tuesday morning, according to Chinese state media, with tremors felt in neighboring Nepal and parts of northern India.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the 7.1-magnitude quake struck at 9:05 a.m. local time and was followed by multiple aftershocks.
Both the USGS and the China Earthquake Networks Center said the epicenter was high up in the remote Tibetan plateau close to the Himalayan border with Nepal, around 50 miles north of Mount Everest.
Another 62 people were injured in the quake, while more than 1,000 houses were damaged in Tingri county, where the epicenter is located, state news agency Xinhua reported.
The tremors were felt as far as Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. “It was very strong. People came running out of their houses. You could see the wires from poles shaken loose,” said Bishal Nath Upreti from the Nepal Centre for Disaster Management, a non-government organization in Kathmandu.
Chinese social media videos geolocated by CNN showed damaged roofs, shop fronts and debris piling on the streets of Lhatse county, some 86 kilometers (53 miles) from the epicenter. Some cars and motorcycles parked along the road were also damaged, the footage showed.
The region close to the epicenter is sparsely populated but small villages are nestled in isolated and often hard to access Himalayan valleys. About 6,900 people are estimated to live in 27 villages within a 20-km (12-miles) radius of the epicenter, according to Xinhua.
The nearest major city to the epicenter is the holy city of Shigatse, which lies some 180 km (111 miles) away. The city is the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, the second-highest spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism, second only to the Dalai Lama.
Surveillance camera footage at a supermarket in Shigatse shared by Xinhua captured the moment the quake struck, with customers running outside as goods fell from quivering shelves.
Everest and Nepal rattled
Tingri county’s tourism bureau closed the entrance to a popular scenic area, which includes the Chinese base camp for climbing Mount Everest. Winter is not the popular season for climbing the world’s highest mountain, but some Chinese tourists still visit the scenic area for breathtaking views of the Himalayan mountains.
In Nepal’s Solukhumbu district, just across the border from the Chinese county at the epicenter, the tremors brought back memories of the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck near Kathmandu in 2015, killing about 9,000 people and injuring thousands.
“The tremors were very strong, definitely everyone is panicked,” Rupesh Vishwakarmi, a local district official, told CNN. At a yak farm close to the Nepal base camp for Mount Everest, “everything is shaking” and the employees were “very scared,” he said.
In Tibet, rescue teams including the Chinese air force have joined in search efforts, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Three villages had lost their phone signals by noon, according to the broadcaster.
To search for survivors, immigration police officers were seen digging through rubbles with bare hands, according to social media videos posted by China’s National Immigration Administration. The village was full of collapsed houses and crumpled walls, with some residents sitting on blankets on the roadside, sipping hot water to stay warm, a video showed.
A total of 49 aftershocks were recorded as of noon Monday, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center.
In a statement following the quake, Chinese leader Xi Jinping called on officials to make all-out efforts to search and rescue survivors, minimize casualties, properly accommodate affected residents, and ensure their safety and warmth in the winter cold.
Tibet is one of the most restricted and politically sensitive regions in China, and access to foreign visitors remains restricted. Beijing has maintained a tight grip on the region since the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
This is a developing story and will be updated.