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Earthquake of magnitude 7 strikes China's Tibet, killing 16, Xinhua reports

October 22, 2026 10:59 AM EDT

Oct 22 (Reuters) - An earthquake ‌of magnitude 7 ​struck ​China's southwestern region of Tibet at around 10:33 p.m. (1433 GMT) on Thursday, killing 16 people and injuring 32 others, ‌state news agency Xinhua reported, citing Nagqu City's emergency management ⁠bureau.

As of 2:25 a.m. on Friday, 11 of the injured were in serious condition ‌while 21 sustained minor injuries, ‌Xinhua reported.

Local authorities have found at least two people injured in a village near the epicentre, with some houses in villages closest ​to the epicentre showing cracks, the state broadcaster said. The quake is the strongest to hit China since January 2024.

The epicentre was in ⁠a sparsely populated, high-altitude county in Nagqu, northern Tibet, at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles). The ​average elevation within 5 km of the epicentre is about 4,864 metres (15,960 feet), China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) data showed.

Videos released ​by local officially run media showed ‌people leaving their homes and seeking shelter outside or in their cars parked on the street. One resident reported ⁠being awakened by the strong quake and heard the house squeaking in the tremor.

The quake was clearly felt in the local area, CENC said. The ⁠epicentre was around 400 km from the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

Local fire and rescue ​teams have mobilised and are heading to the affected region, state media said.

A string of smaller tremors of around magnitude 3 and 4 have been recorded in ‌surrounding regions following the magnitude 7 quake, CENC data showed.

In 2010, a magnitude 7.1 tremor struck Yushu in ‌neighbouring Qinghai province, killing at least 2,698 people and leaving nearly 300 ⁠people missing.

(Reporting by Xiuhao Chen, ‌Yukun Zhang and Liz ​Lee in Beijing, Shivangi Lahiri and Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Aidan Lewis, Timothy Heritage, Rod Nickel and ‌Diti Pujara)



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