BEIJING — A powerful earthquake struck Tibet on Tuesday, killing at least 53 people, trapping many others and sending dozens of aftershocks across western China and along the border with Nepal.
Another 62 people were injured, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the regional disaster relief headquarters.
The Department of Emergency Management said about 1,500 fire and rescue personnel were sent to search for people in the rubble.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.1 and was relatively shallow at a depth of about 6 miles. China recorded a magnitude of 6.8.
The epicenter was about 50 miles northeast of Mount Everest, which straddles the border. The region is seismically active and is where the Indian and Eurasian plates collide, causing the Himalayas to rise with enough force to change the height of some of the world’s highest peaks.
The China Earthquake Network Center posted on social media that the average altitude of the area around the epicenter was about 13,800 feet.
State broadcaster CCTV said there were several communities within three miles of the epicenter, which was 240 miles from Tibet’s capital Lhasa and about 14 miles from Shigatse, the region’s second-largest city.
About 140 miles away, in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, the earthquake woke residents who ran from their homes into the streets. No information was immediately available in Nepal’s remote mountainous areas near the epicenter.
The U.S. Geological Survey said Tuesday’s quake occurred in an area that has seen 10 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or above in the past century.
Associated Press writer Binaj Gurubacharya in Kathmandu, Nepal, and researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.
