Tibet 7-magnitude earthquake: At least 16 killed, 54 injured; over 300 houses collapse in China's Nagqu — Top updates

Earthquake Today: At least 16 people were killed in the powerful magnitude 7 earthquake in China's Tibet on Thursday evening. According to official media, another 54 people were injured in the quake, and hundreds of houses collapsed in the northern regional city of Nagqu.The US Geological Survey said the quake occurred at 10:33 p.m. local time, with its epicentre 191 kilometres (119 miles) east-northeast of Nagqu, in a sparsely populated, high-altitude area of northern Tibet.

It put the earthquake’s depth at 18 kilometres (11 miles).Nagqu is more than 300 kilometres (186 miles) north of Tibet’s capital, Lhasa.Here's what we know about the Tibet 7-magnitude quake so far:At least 339 homes and 20 livestock sheds collapsed in the earthquake, the Nagqu media office said, citing city government officials.Search and rescue efforts are on. More than 1,600 people from the local county have been deployed for rescue efforts.More than 300 police officers have been dispatched for relief work while the regional fire and rescue corps has mobilised 347 personnel to the affected areas, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported.CCTV footage showed workers running out of restaurants and objects falling off supermarket shelves when the quake struck.Rescue workers clambered through damaged buildings, some with collapsed roofs, and carried one person, footage on China's national broadcaster CCTV showed.It also showed rescue workers shining flashlights on other damaged buildings and soldiers lining up ready to be deployed.Supplies including 1,000 prefabricated housing units, around 3,000 tents and folding beds, as well as flashlights and winter clothing arrived in the region.Communication in part of the region has been down, Xinhua reported on Friday.Local railway authorities have taken emergency actions to halt trains passing through the region.The rockfalls caused by the quake forced local authorities to close a section of National Highway 317, allowing only emergency, rescue and official support vehicles through.

Crews are working to clear debris, according to Xinhua.Intermittent snow is expected in the earthquake region over the next three days, Xinhua said.It was the biggest earthquake in the region in the last five years, CCTV said. A level-III earthquake disaster emergency response was activated in the area, the broadcaster said.Earthquakes in China are relatively commonIn January 2025, at least 126 people were killed in an earthquake in Tibet's rural Tingri county.In December 2023, a quake in remote Gansu province in northwest China killed at least 127 people, according to state media.That quake was China's deadliest since 2014, when more than 600 people died in the southwestern province of Yunnan.A huge tremor in 2008 in Sichuan province left some 90,000 people dead or missing, including around 5,000 schoolchildren.(With inputs from agencies)