By Joe Cash
BEIJING (Reuters) -More than 400 people trapped by rubble in earthquake-stricken Tibet have been rescued, Chinese officials said on Wednesday, with an unknown number still unaccounted for in freezing weather a day after a strong tremor rocked the Himalayan foothills.
The epicentre of Tuesday’s magnitude 6.8 quake, one of the region’s most powerful tremors in recent years, was located in Tingri in China’s Tibet, about 80 km (50 miles) north of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain. It also shook buildings in neighbouring Nepal, Bhutan and India.
Twenty-four hours after the temblor struck, those trapped under rubble would have endured a night in sub-zero temperatures, adding to the pressure on rescuers looking for survivors in an area roughly the size of Cambodia.
Temperatures in the high-altitude region dropped as low as minus 18 degrees Celsius (0 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight. People trapped or those without shelter are at risk of rapid hypothermia and may only be able to live for five to 10 hours even if uninjured, experts say.
Footage broadcast on state television CCTV showed families huddled in rows of blue and green tents quickly erected by soldiers and aid workers in settlements surrounding the epicentre, where hundreds of aftershocks have been recorded.
At least 126 people were known to have been killed and 188 injured on the Tibetan side, state broadcaster CCTV reported. No deaths have been reported in Nepal or elsewhere.
The quake was so strong part of the terrain around the epicentre slipped as much as 1.6 metres (5 feet 3 inches) over a distance of 80 km (50 miles), according to an analysis by the United States Geological Survey.
LONE CLIMBER
Chinese authorities have yet to announce how many people are still missing. In Nepal, an official told Reuters the quake destroyed a school building in a village near Mount Everest, which straddles the Nepali-Tibetan border. No one was inside at the time.
German climber Jost Kobusch said he was just above the Everest base camp on the Nepali side when the quake struck. His tent shook violently and he saw several avalanches crash down. He was unscathed.
“I’m climbing Everest in the winter by myself and…looks like basically I’m the only mountaineer there, in the base camp there’s nobody,” Kobusch told Reuters in a video call.
His expedition organising company, Satori Adventure, said Kobusch had left the base camp and was descending to Namche Bazaar on Wednesday on the way to Kathmandu.
No avalanches have been observed on Everest so far from the Chinese side, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday, citing Chinese scientists.
But damage round the epicentre was extensive.
An initial survey showed 3,609 homes had been destroyed in the Shigatse region, home to 800,000 people, state media reported late on Tuesday. More than 14,000 rescue personnel had been deployed.
More than 46,500 people affected by the quake have been relocated, and 484 tourists in Tingri have been safely transported to the city of Shigatse, local officials said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Home to some 60,000 people, Tingri is Tibet’s most populous county on China’s border with Nepal and is administered from Shigatse, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, one of the most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism.
No damage has been reported to Shigatse’s Tashilhunpo monastery, state media reported, founded in 1447 by the first Dalai Lama.
The 14th and current Dalai Lama has said he was deeply saddened by the quake, speaking from exile in India where he fled in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
China routinely rejects criticism from exiles and rights groups of its rule in Tibet, saying it has brought much-needed development to a remote region and that it respects Tibetan culture and religion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Taiwan President Lai Ching-te have also expressed condolences to the earthquake’s victims.
AFTERSHOCKS
Southwestern parts of China, Nepal and northern India are often hit by earthquakes caused by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, which are pushing up an ancient sea that is now the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau.
As of noon on Wednesday, 646 aftershocks with magnitudes of up to 4.4 continued to jolt the area around the epicentre.
Over the past five years, there have been 29 quakes with magnitudes of 3 or above within 200 km (120 miles) of the epicentre of Tuesday’s temblor, according to local earthquake bureau data.
Analysis shows a magnitude 5 to 6 quake could occur in the same area in the near future, Meng Hui, deputy head of Tibet’s earthquake administration, said at the news conference.
Tuesday’s quake was the worst in China since a 6.2 magnitude earthquake in 2023 that killed at least 149 people in a remote northwestern region.
In 2008, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit Sichuan, claiming the lives of at least 70,000 people, the deadliest quake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan quake that killed at least 242,000.
(Reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing; Additional reporting by Ryan Woo in Beijing, Gopal Sharma in Kathmandu, Monica Naime in Mexico City; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Alex Richardson)
