at least 53 dead in Tibet after violent tremors

A powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake shook the Tibet Autonomous Region, southwest China, on Tuesday, January 7. The provisional report shows 53 dead and 62 injured in this high altitude area.

A powerful earthquake shook Tibet, southwest of China, this Tuesday, January 7 shortly after 9 a.m. (2 a.m. in Paris). The toll from the earthquake is only provisional, but it is already very heavy with 53 dead and 62 injured, reports AFP and Chinese media. Between the victims, collapsed buildings and gutted roofs, the damage is numerous and for good reason the magnitude of the earthquake was 6.8 according to the Chinese national earthquake agency (CENC), or even 7.1 according to the American Geological Survey (USGS). The toll could have been even heavier, but the earthquake hit a sparsely populated canton, that of Dingri located near the Sino-Nepalese border.

Videos broadcast by the media and Chinese television show the extent of the damage after the earthquake: high-altitude white houses have gutted walls and destroyed roofs, streets littered with debris and bricks from collapsed buildings. Some images also show survivors trying to take shelter. Emergency services and firefighters are on site to help victims and survivors in this region where temperatures are -8°C during the day and drop to as low as -8°C during the day. -18°C. China also announced that local authorities are going to the various communes of the canton “to assess the repercussions of the earthquake”. Chinese leader Xi Jinping ordered all necessary efforts to treat the injured and urged the deployment of means “to prevent secondary disasters, properly resettle affected residents and effectively manage subsequent work”, reports CCTV.

The violence of the earthquake was such that the “tremors were very strongly felt in the canton of Dingri and the surrounding area” but also as far away as neighboring Nepal in the Himalayan region. After the earthquake, “multiple aftershocks” shook the region again, the largest being magnitude 4.4.

Recurring earthquakes in the region

The earthquake hit the canton of Dingri located near the Chinese side of Everest and with 62,000 inhabitants. But it also shook Nepal’s Kathmandu, Namche and Lobuche regions, all near Everest Base Camp.

Earthquakes are recurrent in this area of ​​the Himalayas which lies on the fracture line between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. However, the earthquake of January 7 is the most powerful recorded within a radius of 200 kilometers in the last five years according to the CENC. There are also much more powerful and deadly precedents: in 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake caused nearly 9,000 deaths and more than 22,000 injuries in Nepal.