16 dead, 65 injured as 7.0 magnitude earthquake strikes Tibet; orange alert issued for economic losses - Here’s what USGS said

Tibet earthquake: An earthquake of magnitude 7.0 struck China's Tibet Autonomous Region on Thursday, killing at least 16 people and injuring 65 others, local government said in ‌a social media post today.

The quake, with an epicentre in Nagqu, a sparsely populated, high-altitude city in northern Tibet, is the strongest to hit China since January 2024, Reuters reported.

Emergency relief work underway

More than 300 police officers including ⁠traffic and community police personnel were sent to the epicentre to carry out rescue and emergency relief work, the Nagqu police department said in a separate post on messaging app WeChat early on Friday.

More than 12,000 people have been safely relocated, state media outlet Xinhua reported.

Videos previously released by local official media ⁠showed people leaving their homes and seeking shelter outside or in their cars parked on the street. One resident reported being awakened by the strong ⁠quake and hearing the house squeaking during the tremor, the Reuters report added.

The China Earthquake Networks Centre said in a post that 413 aftershocks had ⁠been recorded.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake struck at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) about 183 kilometers (114 miles) from Nagqu.

The USGS issued a yellow alert for shaking-related fatalities, indicating that casualties were possible, and an orange alert for economic losses, warning that significant damage was likely and the impact could be widespread.

“Estimated economic losses are less than 1% of GDP of China. Past events with this alert level have required a regional or national level response,” the USGS said.

The agency also noted that people in the region generally live in structures vulnerable to earthquake shaking.

The Tibetan Plateau is known to be prone to powerful earthquakes as it sits right over the place where the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates meet, often colliding with huge force.

In 2010, a magnitude 7.1 tremor struck Yushu in neighbouring Qinghai province, killing at least 2,698 people and leaving nearly 300 people missing.

Magnitude 5 earthquake hits Tibet in August

In August, a magnitude 5.0 earthquake struck China's Tibet region.

- The quake was at a depth of 10 km in northern Tibet, GFZ said.

- The epicentre was hundreds of miles north ⁠of the regions of Nepal and China that were hit by a devastating flash flood on Wednesday that killed hundreds and left more than 1,000 people missing.

- China's earthquake networks centre also reported a magnitude 4.7 quake in Nagqu, ‌Tibet, ⁠on Wednesday, state-run Xinhua news agency said.

- China has activated a Level-IV flood response in Tibet amid the risk of ⁠a barrier lake breach, Xinhua added.

- China's Ministry of Water Resources told local authorities to ⁠monitor the barrier lake and rainfall, and sent an expert team ⁠to Gyirong county, according to Xinhua.

(With inputs from agencies)