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A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck China's Tibet region on Thursday night, killing at least 16 people and collapsing hundreds of homes in the northern regional city of Nagqu, official media said. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake occurred at 10:33 p.m. local time, with its epicenter 191 kilometers (119 miles) east-northeast of Nagqu, in a sparsely populated, high-altitude area of northern Tibet.
Search and rescue efforts continued on Friday after the collapse of at least 339 homes and 20 livestock sheds, the Nagqu media office said, citing city government officials. The number of injured stood at 54, with 11 in serious condition and the rest sustaining minor injuries, the media office said. A CCTV report put the death toll at 18; the figures were still provisional as damage assessments continued.
More than 1,600 people from the local county were deployed for rescue efforts. 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. China's President Xi Jinping called for all-out efforts in rescue operations and medical relief work. Xinhua reported that more than 300 police officers had been dispatched while the regional fire and rescue corps mobilized almost 350 personnel to the affected areas.
The quake disrupted transport across the remote region. Local railway authorities halted trains passing through the area while safety inspections were carried out, and a section of National Highway 317 was closed to all but emergency, rescue and official support vehicles after rockfalls blocked it, according to Xinhua. Communication in some areas hit by the quake was down, and intermittent snow is expected in the region over the next three days.
CCTV called it the biggest earthquake in the region in the last five years. The USGS recorded at least seven aftershocks with magnitudes between 4.3 and 5.2. Nagqu lies more than 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Tibet's capital, Lhasa. In January 2025, an earthquake in Tibet's rural Tingri county killed at least 126 people.