Strong 7-magnitude earthquake strikes China’s Tibet region

A strong magnitude 7 earthquake struck China’s Tibet at 10.30 p.m. local time on Thursday, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The epicenter was 183 kilometers East-Northeast of the city of Nagqu in western China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, USGS data shows. The scope of the damage is currently unclear. China is no stranger to powerful quakes, especially in southwestern parts of the country where the Eurasian tectonic plate meets the Indian plate, a dramatic collision that creates the mighty Himalayas and the vast Tibetan plateau. The last comparably-strong earthquake to rock China occurred in January 2024, when a 7.1-magnitude quake hit a mountainous and remote part of China’s far western Xinjiang region, killing three people and injuring scores more. In December 2023, over one hundred people were killed when an earthquake hit China’s Jishishan county in Gansu province, northwest China, making it the country’s deadliest in nearly a decade. This is a developing story and will be updated.