At least 95 people have been confirmed dead and 130 are injured after a major earthquake struck Tibet.
The earthquake hit Tibet’s holy Shigatse city around 9am local time (1am GMT) on Tuesday (January 7) at a magnitude of 7.1 and a depth of six miles (10 kilometres), according to data from the US Geological Survey.
Many people were left trapped as dozens of aftershocks shook the region in western China and across the border into Nepal.
China’s official Xinhua News Agency had earlier reported 62 people were injured, citing the regional disaster relief headquarters, but the BBC has since said the death toll has risen.
The Ministry of Emergency Management said about 1,500 fire and rescue workers were involved in the search for people in the rubble.
China’s President Xi Jinping ordered an “all-out” rescue effort to save lives and minimise the number of casualties, according to Xinhua News Agency.
The US Geological Survey reported the earthquake as measuring magnitude 7.1, adding that its depth was relatively shallow. China recorded the magnitude as 6.8.
The epicenter was about 50 miles (75 kilometers) northeast of Mount Everest, which straddles the border. The area is seismically active and is where the India and Eurasia plates meet, causing uplifts in the Himalayan mountains strong enough to change the heights of some of the world’s tallest peaks.
China Earthquake Networks Center said in a social media post that average altitude in the area around the epicenter is about 13,800ft (4,200m).
State broadcaster CCTV said there are a handful of communities within three miles (five kilometers) of the epicenter, which was 240 miles (380 kilometers) from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
It was also about 14 miles (23 kilometers) from the region’s second-largest city of Shigatse, known as Xigaze in Chinese.
The earthquake woke residents up in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, and sent them running out of their homes into the streets.
No information was immediately available from the remote, mountainous areas of Nepal closer to the epicenter.
It is thought to be the strongest earthquake to strike the area in 5 years and at least 40 aftershocks have been reported since it struck.
Earthquakes in China happen most frequently on the Tibetan Plateau or its fringes. A 7.9 earthquake in Sichuan province in the southwest killed nearly 90,000 people in May 2008.
The collapse of schools and other buildings led to a years-long effort to rebuild, using more quake-resistant materials.
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