BEIJING — A powerful earthquake killed at least 53 people and left many others trapped in Tibet on Tuesday, while dozens of aftershocks shook the region of western China and across the border in Nepal.
The official Xinhua News Agency, citing the regional disaster relief headquarters, said 62 more people were injured.
The Ministry of Civil Protection said around 1,500 fire and rescue workers were on duty to search for people in the rubble.
According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.1 and was relatively shallow at a depth of about six miles. China recorded a magnitude of 6.8.
The epicenter was about 50 miles northeast of Mount Everest, which lies on the border. The area is seismically active and is where the Indian and Eurasian plates meet, causing uplifts in the Himalayan mountains strong enough to change the height of some of the world's highest peaks.
The average altitude in the area around the epicenter is about 13,800 feet, the China Earthquake Networks Center said in a social media post.
State broadcaster CCTV said there were a handful of communities within five kilometers of the epicenter, which is 240 miles from Lhasa, Tibet's capital, and about 22 kilometers from the region's second-largest city, Shigatse, known as Xigaze in Chinese.
About 140 miles away in Nepal's capital Kathmandu, the earthquake woke residents and sent them running from their homes into the streets. No information was available from the remote mountainous areas of Nepal, which are closer to the epicenter.
The area where Tuesday's quake occurred has seen 10 earthquakes with a magnitude of 6 or greater in the past century, according to the USGS.
Moritsugu writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Binaj Gurubacharya in Kathmandu, Nepal, and researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.