A powerful earthquake has struck Tibet: the death toll has reached 126 people, and 188 others have been injured. Photos and videos

On the morning of January 7, a powerful earthquake struck the Chinese autonomous region of Tibet, killing more than a hundred people. The magnitude of the aftershocks reached 7.1.

The epicenter of the tremors was recorded at a depth of almost 10 kilometers in Tingri County, where the Indo-Eurasian and Eurasian plates collide with each other. This was reported by NBC News.

Dingri County in Shigajie, a mountainous region in western China bordering Nepal, was the hardest hit by the disaster. Shigadze, which is located about 380 kilometers from the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, is the residence of the Panchen Lama, the second most important spiritual figure in Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama.

According to China's state-run Xinhua news agency, many buildings near the epicenter collapsed, and some people were trapped under the rubble.

Chinese authorities have sent about 3,000 rescuers to the area.

The Tibetan Bureau of Seismology reported that they could not provide an estimate of the number of casualties as they were still finalizing the figures. The region, which is located near a major fault line between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, is a place of frequent seismic activity. In 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake near Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, killed nearly 9,000 people and injured more than 20,000.

Jiang Haikun, a researcher at the China Seismological Network Center, said there is a threat of aftershocks. The expert noted that an earthquake with a magnitude of about 5 points could occur, while the probability of stronger tremors is low.

The Chinese Air Force has launched a rescue operation and sent drones to the affected area, located at the foot of Mount Everest. Electricity and water supply have been cut off in the region.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also called for a comprehensive search and rescue operation to minimize the number of casualties and relocate the affected residents.

As of 17:00 (Kyiv time), at least 188 people were injured and at least 126 were killed.

More than 1000 buildings were damaged in the sparsely populated region. AP reports that about 150 aftershocks were recorded in the nine hours after the main earthquake, and the picturesque Everest area on the Chinese side was closed.

Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing went to the affected area to supervise the work, and the government announced the allocation of 100 million yuan (13.6 million US dollars) to eliminate the consequences of the natural disaster.

As a reminder, a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 occurred off the northern coast of the US state of California in December. A tsunami threat was announced for the coastal areas of California and Oregon, but the destructive waves did not reach the shore.

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