Rescue efforts under way after earthquake in Tibet kills more than 120

On this picture launched by Xinhua Information Company, first responders carry out rescue work at a village in Changsuo Township of Dingri County in Xigaze, southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Area, Jan. 7. AP-Yonhap

Greater than 400 folks trapped by a powerful earthquake within the foothills of the Himalayas have been rescued, Chinese language officers mentioned, whereas over 30,000 residents have been relocated, because the seek for survivors entered a second day on Wednesday.

The epicenter of Tuesday’s magnitude 6.8 quake, one of many area’s strongest tremors in recent times, was positioned in Tingri in China’s Tibet area, about 80 km (50 miles) north of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain. It additionally shook buildings in neighboring Nepal, Bhutan and India.

Twenty-four hours after the temblor struck, survivors trapped underneath rubble can have endured an evening in sub-zero temperatures and be vulnerable to succumbing to hypothermia and dehydration.

An preliminary survey confirmed 3,609 properties had been destroyed within the Shigatse area of Tibet, which is residence to 800,000 folks, Chinese language state media reported late on Tuesday, citing native officers. Greater than 500 folks and 106 ambulances had been dispatched to assist the injured.

At the least 126 folks had been identified to have been killed and 188 injured on the Tibetan facet, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported. No deaths have been reported in Nepal or elsewhere.

Rescue groups work amidst rubble within the aftermath of an earthquake in a location given as Shigatse Metropolis, Tibet Autonomous Area, China, on this screengrab obtained from a handout video launched, Jan. 7. Reuters-Yonhap

Temperatures within the high-altitude area dropped to as little as minus 18 levels Celsius (0 levels Fahrenheit) in a single day, including to the distress of these left homeless.

Tents, meals rations, electrical turbines and different provides had reached the location by late on Tuesday, and all sections of highway broken by the temblor had been reopened, CCTV added.

Southwestern elements of China, Nepal and northern India are sometimes hit by earthquakes attributable to the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, that are pushing up an historical sea that’s now the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau.

Your complete plateau is seismically energetic, in addition to its japanese and northern rims, which overlap with the Chinese language provinces and areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai.

Beijing, which administers Tibet as an autonomous area inside China, rejects criticism from rights teams and exiles who accuse it of trampling on the non secular and cultural rights of the Tibetan folks.

Greater than 500 aftershocks with magnitudes of as much as 4.4 had adopted the quake as of 8 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Wednesday, the China Earthquake Networks Centre mentioned.

Over the previous 5 years, there have been 29 earthquakes with magnitudes of three or above inside 200 km of the epicenter of Tuesday’s temblor, in keeping with the Sichuan province’s earthquake bureau.

In 2008 an 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit Sichuan’s Chengdu, claiming the lives of at the very least 70,000 folks, the deadliest quake to hit China because the 1976 Tangshan quake that killed at the very least 242,000 folks.

Tuesday’s quake was the worst since a 6.2 magnitude earthquake in 2023 that killed at the very least 149 folks in a distant northwestern area of the nation. (Reuters)