Magnitude 7 Earthquake Strikes Northern Tibet, Strongest to Hit China Since 2024

Updated 22:14 UTC, Oct. 22, 2026

At least 16 people were killed and 32 injured in the earthquake, the Associated Press reported, citing official media and the Nagqu media office. Eleven of the injured are in serious condition and the other 21 have minor injuries. At least 339 homes collapsed in Baqen County, the media office said, citing city government officials. CNN, citing the state news agency Xinhua, also reported at least 16 dead and at least 339 collapsed houses.

Search and rescue work continued after the collapse, and rescue teams from the police and fire departments were building tents for people displaced by the quake, AP reported. China Central Television, the national broadcaster, called it the biggest earthquake in the region in the last five years. Railway services through the affected areas were suspended, according to state media CCTV, and the China Earthquake Administration activated a Level II emergency response, its second highest tier, broadcaster CGTN said.

The confirmed toll replaces the first wire position in the original report below, where casualties and damage were not yet known. The count came from officials in Nagqu, and assessment of the damage was still under way on Thursday night.

A magnitude 7 earthquake struck northern Tibet late on Thursday, the strongest earthquake to hit China since January 2024. China's Earthquake Networks Center, known as CENC, said the quake struck at 10:33 p.m. local time (1433 GMT) in Baqen County, in the Nagqu area of the Tibet Autonomous Region, at a depth of 10 kilometres. The United States Geological Survey, the USGS, also recorded a magnitude of 7.0 and marked its reading as reviewed.

The USGS placed the epicentre 183 kilometres east-northeast of Nagqu, at 32.336 degrees north and 93.714 degrees east. It estimated the strongest shaking at intensity VIII on the Modified Mercalli scale, which it classes as severe. The survey put the size of the fault rupture at about 50 kilometres by 20 kilometres and said the faulting pattern fits the east-west stretching of the high plateau. CENC said the quake was clearly felt in the local area.

A remote, high-altitude epicentre

CENC data put the average elevation within 5 kilometres of the epicentre at about 4,864 metres. The county sits in a sparsely populated part of northern Tibet, and the epicentre was around 400 kilometres from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. That distance, the altitude and the late hour all shape the first hours after a quake here. Settlements are small and spread out, and roads cross open plateau and mountain passes.

Reuters reported in its first story, published at 2:59 p.m. GMT, that it was not immediately known whether there were casualties or damage. CNN, reporting the USGS figures, said the scope of the damage was unclear. Early reports in Chinese media said buildings had collapsed and walls were damaged in Maru Township, and that rockfalls in Baqen County had damaged a car and guardrails and blocked a section of National Highway 317. Those reports carried no casualty figures, and officials had not confirmed a casualty or damage count in the first wire reporting.

Why this plateau shakes

Northern Tibet sits on the high plateau pushed up by the long collision between the Indian and Eurasian plates. The same forces built the Himalayas. Earthquakes are a standing fact of life across the region, and the USGS fault reading for Thursday's quake points to the plateau itself stretching and cracking as it spreads east and west.

The comparison officials and Chinese media reach for is close by. In 2010, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Yushu in neighbouring Qinghai province, around 280 kilometres from Thursday's epicentre. That quake killed at least 2,698 people and left nearly 300 people missing, according to the figures Reuters cited on Thursday. Yushu was a county town with far denser building than the open country around Baqen, which is one reason the first question after any plateau quake is where, exactly, people were sleeping when it hit.

For now, the confirmed facts are the instruments: a magnitude 7, a shallow depth of 10 kilometres, and severe estimated shaking near the epicentre. What happened on the ground in Maru and the villages around it will come from county officials, rescue teams and daylight. This story will be updated as officials report casualties, damage and road closures.