Magnitude 7 earthquake shakes Tibet: dozens dead and injured, hundreds of houses collapsed

A dramatic earthquake of magnitude 7 shattered the silence of the Tibet Autonomous Region on the evening of Thursday 22 October. The violent vibration, recorded at 10.33pm local time (corresponding to 4.33pm in Italy), had its epicenter in the county of Baqen, within the prefecture of Nagqu, with a hypocenter identified at a depth of 10 kilometers. The force of the earthquake caused the collapse of over 300 homes in a geographical area located at approximately 4,800 meters above sea level.

The first provisional toll speaks of at least 16 dead and over 60 injured, while the frightened population took to the streets defying the freezing temperatures of the plateau. Among the witnesses, the deputy head of the municipality of Maru, Lhawang Dagpo, reported violent cracks that suddenly appeared in the walls of public offices and serious disruptions to the electricity and telephone networks.

The race against time and the emergency on the communication routes

The rescue machine was activated immediately with the deployment of over 1,600 people engaged in search and rescue operations. Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered maximum efforts to rescue any trapped survivors and provide medical assistance to the injured. The firefighters sent 347 specialists to the scene with 82 vehicles and 15 search dogs, supported by 300 police officers.

The operations are made extremely complex by the high altitude, the frost and the expected intermittent snowfalls for the next three days. The earthquake also caused dangerous landslides along National Highway 317, reserved for emergency vehicles only, and forced authorities to interrupt the Qinghai-Tibet railway to carry out necessary safety checks on the tracks.

A vulnerable territory marked by the great earthquakes of the past

The Tibetan plateau area is historically subject to high seismic activity due to the gigantic thrusts of the Indian plate against the Eurasian plate. The Nagqu seismic event represents the strongest earthquake recorded in the region in the last 5 years and the most intense earthquake in China since January 2024. Collective memory inevitably returns to the tragic precedents that have marked the country, such as the strong 6.8 magnitude earthquake that hit the county of Tingri on 7 January 2025 causing 126 victims, up to the catastrophic 7.1 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Yushu in 2010, which caused the loss of 2,698 lives. Emergency teams continue to dig through the rubble continuously in the hope of extracting more people who are still alive.