Nearly 130 killed as quake rattles Tibet

A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the foothills of the Himalayas near one of Tibet's holiest cities on Tuesday, killing at least 126 people and wrecking hundreds of houses, Chinese authorities said.

Many others were trapped as dozens of aftershocks shook the remote region.

The earthquake's epicentre was about 80km north of Mount Everest. Tremors also shook buildings in neighbouring Nepal, Bhutan and India.

The China Earthquake Networks Centre located the epicentre at Tingri county, known as the northern gateway to the Everest region, at a depth of 10km. Shallow earthquakes often cause more damage.

The US Geological Service put the quake's magnitude at 7.1. It struck at 9.05am local time (0105 GMT).

Scientists have long warned that a massive earthquake is imminent in the Himalayan region which would trigger widespread destruction in the area but the predicted timelines vary from a couple of years to a century.

The quake's impact was felt across the Shigatse region of Tibet, home to 800,000 people. The region is administered by Shigatse city, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, one of the most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism. Many homes in Shigatse city were reduced to rubble, video made way for senior minister Atishi in September and has set up the upcoming polls as a referendum about his honesty and governance model.

The AAP will have to fend off the charge of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was relegated to three and eight seats in the previous two elections respectively, and has not ruled the Capital since Sushma Swaraj's brief term in 1998. However, the party won all seven Lok Sabha seats in the city in the 2024 and 2019 assembly elections.

The Congress, which under former chief minister Sheila Dikshit ruled Delhi for three straight terms between 1998 and 2013, will look to regain some of its foothold in a city that once seemed to be an impene trable fortress for other political parties. The party blanked in the 2015 and 2020 election cycles and last had a presence in the Vidhan Sabha only in 2013, when it won eight seats and formed an ill-fated coalition government with the AAP.