A magnitude 7 earthquake struck northern Tibet on Thursday night, killing at least 16 people and bringing down hundreds of homes in the region around the city of Nagqu, according to Chinese official media.
The damage
The U.S. Geological Survey put the quake at 10:33 p.m. local time, with its epicenter 119 miles east-northeast of Nagqu, in a sparsely populated, high-altitude stretch of the plateau. It was shallow, at about 11 miles down, which makes a quake more dangerous. The Nagqu media office, citing city officials, said at least 339 homes and 20 livestock sheds collapsed. The number of injured was reported variously, from 32 to 54; of those hurt, 11 were in serious condition.
Power and communication lines were cut in part of the area, Xinhua reported, and communications were still down on Friday. Railway authorities halted trains passing through the region. Rockfalls forced the closure of a section of National Highway 317, which now admits only emergency, rescue and official support vehicles while crews clear debris.
Rescue under snow
More than 1,600 people from the local county have been deployed. Supplies have begun to arrive: 1,000 prefabricated housing units, around 3,000 tents, folding beds, flashlights and winter clothing. Relief officials were still assessing the scale of the damage. Xinhua said intermittent snow is expected over the next three days, which will not help.
China’s national broadcaster CCTV called it the biggest earthquake in the region in five years. Notably, it is also the most powerful to hit China since January 2024, according to another report.
A seismically busy country
Earthquakes are relatively common in China, and the plateau has form. In January 2025, a quake near Mount Everest, in Tibet’s Tingri region, killed at least 126 people. In 2010, a magnitude 7.1 quake in neighboring Qinghai province killed at least 2,698. This latest one hit a mountainous area with few residents, which is the salient point in explaining why the toll is not higher. Nagqu itself lies about 300 kilometers north of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.
Sources
- Powerful earthquake in China’s Tibet collapses hundreds of homes and kills at least 16 people
- 16 killed, dozens injured in earthquake in Tibet, hundreds of homes destroyed
- Powerful earthquake in China’s Tibet region collapses hundreds of homes and kills at least 16 people
Photo: Jan Kranendonk (https://www.jankranendonk.nl) (CC BY-SA 4.0)
