Tibet Hit by 7.0 Magnitude Quake: Death Toll and Damage Details

Lhasa, October 23: A 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook Tibet on Thursday, leaving 16 people dead and 32 injured. The city's emergency management bureau says rescue and relief work remains underway in the disaster zone.

Friday morning updates at 2:25 AM showed that 11 of the injured were in serious condition, and 21 had minor injuries. The earthquake also brought down more than 300 houses.

Authorities are still working to measure the full extent of the losses. Relief operations are accelerating, with help being directed to people in affected areas.

Over 300 police personnel were sent to the epicentre region to aid rescue and relief. The regional fire and rescue department deployed 347 employees to the affected districts.

Tibet has experienced earlier seismic events. A magnitude 5.0 earthquake hit on September 3, with its centre around 14 kilometres deep. In January 2025, a 6.8 magnitude quake killed more than 120 people and injured hundreds more.

India's National Centre for Seismology (NCS) reported that the latest tremor occurred 173 kilometres below the surface. The epicentre was about 400 kilometres from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

Experts note that rising temperatures, accelerating glacier melt and an increase in extreme weather events may intensify the threat of natural hazards on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The quake has renewed concern about this sensitive region, where people are still coping with the aftermath of recent disasters.

The earthquake came just weeks after an ice-and-rock avalanche on August 26 near the Nepal-Tibet border. That avalanche triggered massive flash floods which carried away homes, roads and bridges, harmed several hydropower projects and left thousands of people unaccounted for. Additionally, the August floods in the Nepal-Tibet border area claimed the lives of over 1,400 people.