According to reports from Chinese officials on Wednesday, over 400 survivors have been rescued from the collapsed structures in Tibet earthquakes. However, due to a high-intensity earthquake that shook the Himalayan foothills, a landscape that became part of the seemingly ugly accusers was later left with incalculable numbers of people unaccounted for.
The epicenter of the 6.8 magnitude quake, probably one of the fiercest to hit the region in recent years, was established in Tingri, Tibet, roughly 80 kilometers north of Mount Everest. The quake had an impact on buildings in neighboring Nepal, Bhutan, and India.
The United States Geological Survey has estimated that the earthquake was so powerful that the land adjoining the epicenter was displaced by about 1.6 meters along lengths of 80 kilometers.
As much as the trapped individuals have survived up to 24 hours into the incident, being able to spend a night in sub-zero temperatures adds pressure on rescuers searching for survivors in an area that could fit the size of Cambodia: the area has been struck widely across the country with difficulties in efforts for rescue.
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The extreme high-altitude region reached around minus 18 degrees Celsius overnight. Trapped or unsheltered individuals are at the risk of severe hypothermia and can live for only between 5 and 10 hours, according to experts, even in the absence of injury.
According to state broadcaster CCTV, at least 126 Tibetans have died and 188 have suffered injuries as a result of the devastation. No deaths were recorded in Nepal or elsewhere.
Still, the Chinese are silent on how many people are still unaccounted for. In the same line, an official told Reuters that a building housing a school came crashing down in a village on the slopes of Mount Everest crossing the Nepali-Tibetan border. Thankfully, no one was inside during the incident.
According to German climber Jost Kobusch, he was just above the base camp of Everest when the event happened on the Nepali side. His tent rocked like hell, and then he saw many avalanche crashes down. He walked out unscathed.
“I’m climbing Everest in winter, alone. It looks like basically, I am the only mountaineer here because, at the base camp, there are no other mountaineers,” Kobusch told Reuters on a video call.
It stated that Satori Adventure, Kobusch’s expedition organizing company, said he left from the base camp on Wednesday to descend to Namche Bazaar on the way to Kathmandu.
In Tibet, however, the devastation is extensive.
An initial survey revealed 3,609 homes destroyed in the Shigatse region, which is home to 800,000 people, according to state media late Tuesday. Over 1,800 emergency response personnel and 1,600 soldiers had been deployed.
CCTV footage showed families confined in rows of blue and green tents quickly pitched by soldiers and aid workers in settlements surrounding the epicenter of hundreds of earthquake aftershocks recorded to date.
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People stand surrounded by makeshift shelter, in the aftermath of an earthquake in a place given as Shigatse City, Tibet Autonomous Region, China, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video released on January 7. — Reuters State media mentioned that over 30,000 affected by the quake have been evacuated.
Tingri, which is home to around 60,000 people, is Tibet’s most populous county on the border with Nepal, administered from the city of Shigatse, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, one of the most significant figures in Tibetan Buddhism.
No damage was reported from the Tashilhunpo monastery in Shigatse, state media said, founded by the first Dalai Lama in 1447.
The current 14th Dalai Lama, Japanese Premier Shigeru Ishiba, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, offered condolences to the victims of the earthquake.
Following the aftershocks of the earthquake caused by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates which are pushing up an ancient sea that is now the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, southwestern parts of China, Nepal, and northern India are often hit by earthquakes due to other sources. More than 500 aftershocks of the quake were recorded as having reached up to 4.4 by 8.30 am (5 am PST) Wednesday, as reported by China’s Earthquake Networks Centre.
Over the past five years, there have been around 29 earthquakes with at least a 3 magnitude, within a range of 200 km from the epicenter of Tuesday’s temblor, according to records from the local earthquake bureau. It is the worst temblor China has reported since a 6.2 magnitude earthquake, occurring in 2023, which is credited with not less than 149 casualties in an isolated northwestern region.
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More than 70,000 people lost their lives when an earthquake of 8.0 magnitude struck the province of Sichuan in 2008. This earthquake remains the deadliest to have struck China since the Tangshan earthquake that devastated the region in 1976 and accounted for over 242,000 deaths.