Beijing: At least 36 people were killed after a powerful earthquake struck a remote region of Tibet on Tuesday morning, according to Chinese state media.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the 7.1-magnitude quake struck at 9.05 local time and was followed by multiple aftershocks.
Both the USGS and the China Earthquake Networks Center gave the epicenter location high up in the remote Tibetan plateau close to the Himalayan border with Nepal.
Some village houses collapsed in the quake, state news agency Xinhua reported.
The nearest major city to the epicenter is the holy city of Shigatse, which lies some 180 kilometers (111 miles) away.
The city is the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, the second-highest spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism, after the Dalai Lama.
The trembler at 9:05 am (0105 GMT) had an epicentre depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), the report added, revising the magnitude from an earlier 6.9.
Crumbled shop fronts could be seen in a video showing the aftermath from the nearby town of Lhatse, with debris spilling out onto the road.
Reuters was able to confirm the location from nearby buildings, windows, road layout, and signage that match satellite and street view imagery. The date could not be verified independently.
Tremors were felt in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu some 400 km (250 miles) away, where residents ran from their houses.
Tremors were also felt in the northern Indian state of Bihar which borders Nepal. As walls shook, people rushed out of their homes and apartments to open areas.
So far, no reports of any damage or loss to property have been received, officials in India said.
Southwestern parts of China are frequently hit by earthquakes. A huge quake in Sichuan province in 2008 killed almost 70,000 people.
According to China’s state broadcaster CCTV, there have been 29 earthquakes with magnitudes of 3 or higher within 200 km of the Shigatse quake in the past five years, all of which were smaller than the one that struck on Tuesday morning.
In 2015, a magnitude 7.8 tremor struck near Kathmandu in neighbouring Nepal, killing about 9,000 people and injuring thousands in that country’s worst earthquake.
