Photo: Baycrest / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5
A powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.0 struck Baqen County in the Nagqu region of northern Tibet on Thursday night, China’s earthquake monitoring agency said. The tremor hit at 10:33 pm Beijing time (8:03 pm IST) at a shallow depth of about 10 km, and there were no immediate reports of deaths or damage.
Where the quake hit
According to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC), the epicentre lay at 32.40 degrees north and 93.79 degrees east, in a remote county roughly 400 km from the regional capital, Lhasa. The land within 5 km of the epicentre sits at an average height of about 4,864 metres, and the agency said the shaking was clearly felt in the surrounding area.
Other monitoring agencies arrived at the same magnitude. Germany’s GFZ research centre measured it at 7.0 at a depth of 10 km, and the US Geological Survey (USGS) also put it at 7.0, locating it about 191 km east-northeast of Nagqu city. India’s National Center for Seismology recorded a magnitude 7.0 event at 8:03 pm IST. Chinese state media described it as the strongest earthquake to hit China so far this year.
The USGS recorded a magnitude 5.2 aftershock in the same area about 40 minutes after the main shock.
Rescue teams on the move
Chinese state media reported that the Nagqu detachment of the Lhasa fire and rescue service sent a forward team of seven personnel in two vehicles towards the affected area soon after the quake. The team carried life detectors along with equipment for breaking through and propping up damaged structures. Local disaster teams and seismic staff were assessing remote settlements in Nagqu to judge the extent of any damage.
Why the warnings matter
The region is thinly populated, which may limit the human toll. Even so, the USGS’s automatic impact estimate issued an orange alert for economic losses, meaning significant damage is likely and could be widespread, and a yellow alert for fatalities, meaning some casualties are possible. The agency noted that many homes in the region are built of adobe blocks or unreinforced brick and mud, which are vulnerable to strong shaking.
A region prone to strong quakes
The Tibetan Plateau sits above the zone where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates collide, and it regularly produces large earthquakes. In January 2025, a quake that the USGS measured at magnitude 7.1 struck Tingri County near Shigatse in southern Tibet, killing 126 people according to the Chinese government and flattening many houses. That tremor was also felt in Nepal, Bhutan and northern India.
What happens next
Fuller details on casualties and damage are expected once rescue and assessment teams reach the outlying villages of Baqen County. The USGS has already logged one sizeable aftershock, and residents of the area are likely to face more tremors as the fault settles.
