Tibet hit by two powerful aftershocks of last week’s earthquake
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The Jan 7 earthquake, the fifth-strongest in China since the destructive 2008 Sichuan temblor, left at least 126 people dead and injured 338 in Tibet.
PHOTO: REUTERS
BEIJING - A rural county in the Chinese region of Tibet, still feeling tremors from last week’s 6.8-magnitude earthquake, was jolted on the night of Jan 13 by two powerful aftershocks barely a minute apart.
A magnitude 4.9 quake struck Tingri county at 8.57pm, according to China Earthquake Networks Centre.
That was followed by a 5-magnitude aftershock a minute later, whose epicentre was just 9km from last week’s quake.
Chinese state media said there were no immediate reports of casualties following the aftershock, which struck at a very shallow depth of 10km.
The Jan 7 earthquake, the fifth-strongest in China since the destructive 2008 Sichuan temblor, left at least 126 people dead and injured 338 in Tibet.
More than 47,000 people in Tingri had to be swiftly resettled in tents and prefab houses, in a high-altitude environment where night-time temperatures in winter plunge to as low as minus 15 deg C.
South-western parts of China, Nepal and northern India are often hit by earthquakes caused by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates.
Tingri, which sits atop the zone where the Indian plate pushes under Tibet, is particularly vulnerable. REUTERS
