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CV NEWS FEED // A 7.1 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday killed at least 126 people and injured another 188 in Tibet, which is on the border of China and Nepal.
News outlet Al Jazeera reported that more than 1,000 homes were destroyed. The epicenter of the earthquake was in the city of Shigatse, in Dingri county. Al Jazeera described Shigatse as Tibet’s holiest city, as it’s where Buddhist leader Panchen Lama, the second in authority to the Dalai Lama, resides.
The Buddhist Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, which was built in 1447, was left untouched by the earthquake, according to Art News.
Al Jazeera reports that Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for relief efforts, and approximately 1,500 rescuers were deployed to search for people in the rubble caused by the earthquake.
Many of the villages surrounding the epicenter are extremely rural.
Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu reported from Beijing, “These are very remote villages in mountainous areas that are difficult to access and that difficulty will be increased by the fact that it is winter now, very cold and not very close to any major city.”
Tremors from the earthquake were felt as far as Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, which is more than 200 miles away from Shigaste, leading residents to run from their shaking homes. So far, no casualties have been reported in Nepal.
Al Jazeera stated that the Tibetan Plateau is especially prone to earthquakes since it lies on a major geological fault line, over the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. In the surrounding region, there have been 29 earthquakes in the past five years with a magnitude of three or above.
