Powerful earthquake rocks Tibet and parts of Nepal, killing at least 95

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - HONG KONG — At least 95 people have been killed after a powerful earthquake struck a remote region of Tibet on Tuesday morning, with tremors felt across the Himalayas in neighboring Nepal, Bhutan and parts of northern India.

The 7.1-magnitude quake struck at 9:05 a.m. local time at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) and was followed by multiple aftershocks, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

The energy unleashed by the tectonic movement toppled houses in remote Himalayan villages, rocked a nearby Tibetan holy city and rattled visitors to a Mount Everest base camp.

Its epicenter, located in Tingri county high on the Tibetan plateau, was close to the border with Nepal, around 50 miles north of the world’s highest mountain.

At least 130 people were injured in the quake, local authorities said at a news conference on Tuesday afternoon. More than 1,000 houses were damaged in Tingri county, 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.

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.

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 nearest major city to the epicenter is the holy city of Shigatse, which lies some 180 km (111 miles) away. The city is home to about 800,000 people and 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. There were no immediate reports of widespread damage in the city.

Anna Guo, a 18-year-old college student, was about to depart Shigatse and head southwest to see Mount Everest when the ground started shaking violently on Tuesday morning. “People around me began to panic and became noticeably tense,” she told CNN.

“I’ve been planning the trip for a year. But when I finally made it here, I encountered an earthquake. I never thought something like this would happen to me,” she said.

On Tuesday, local authorities closed down a base camp for climbing Mount Everest, as well as the surrounding scenic area. 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.

Ba Luo, a staff member at the base camp, said he felt tremors of the earthquake, but no damaged was done to the buildings. Nearly 500 tourists visited the camp Monday and about 30 visitors were at the base when the quake struck, he said, adding that all tourists had been evacuated.

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. Later, it said the first batch of more than 200 Chinese military soldiers had been deployed to Tingri county, with 1,500 more on standby. Three villages had lost their phone signals by noon, according to the broadcaster.

To search for survivors, immigration police officers were seen digging through rubble with bare hands, according to social media videos posted by China’s National Immigration Administration. The footage showed a village full of collapsed houses and crumpled walls, with some residents sitting on blankets on the roadside, sipping hot water to stay warm.

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 tightly controlled. 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. — CNN