Emergency services personnel coordinate rescue efforts following an earthquake, at a location given as Nagqu, Tibet Autonomous Region, China in this still image from video released October 23, 2026. Nagqu Police Department/Handout via REUTERS .
Emergency services personnel place items retrieved from a building into a vehicle, following an earthquake, at a location given as Nagqu, Tibet Autonomous Region, China in this still image from video released October 23, 2026. Nagqu Police Department/Handout via REUTERS.
Emergency services personnel at a damaged building following an earthquake, at a location given as Nagqu, Tibet Autonomous Region, China in this still image from video released October 23, 2026. Nagqu Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
Emergency services personnel retrieve items from a building following an earthquake, at a location given as Nagqu, Tibet Autonomous Region, China in this still image from video released October 23, 2026. Nagqu Police Department/Handout via REUTERS .
BEIJING, Oct 23 (Reuters) – The number of people injured in a magnitude 7 earthquake that struck the southwestern region of China’s Tibet has risen to 65, local government said in a social media post on Friday, while the death count remained unchanged at 16.
The quake, with an epicentre in Nagqu, a sparsely populated, high-altitude city in northern Tibet, is the strongest to hit China since January 2024.
Earthquake strikes China’s Tibet
A 7.0 magnitude earthquake has struck China’s south western region of Tibet near Nagqu on October 22, 2026.
Shake map intensity
Weak ———————————Violent
Note: A shakemap represents the ground shaking produced by an earthquake. The information is different from the earthquake‘s magnitude and epicenter as a shakemap focuses on the variation in ground shaking produced by the earthquake, rather than describing the earthquake‘s source or strength.
Source: United States Geological SurveyReuters Staff.
More than 300 police officers including traffic and community police personnel were sent to the epicentre to carry out rescue and emergency relief work, the Nagqu police department said in a separate post on messaging app WeChat early on Friday.
Officers sent to the region checked for damage to homes and helped people relocate to safer locations, the Nagqu police also said in the WeChat post.
A video the police on TikTok sister app Douyin showed officers packing supplies in a truck in the dark and inspecting a building and rubble with flashlights.
More than 12,000 people have been safely relocated, state media outlet Xinhua reported.
Videos previously released by local official media showed people leaving their homes and seeking shelter outside or in their cars parked on the street. One resident reported being awakened by the strong quake and hearing the house squeaking during the tremor.
The China Earthquake Networks Center said in a post that 413 aftershocks had been recorded.
In 2010, a magnitude 7.1 tremor struck Yushu in neighbouring Qinghai province, killing at least 2,698 people and leaving nearly 300 people missing.
Reporting by Andrew Silver; Editing by Tom Hogue.
