A day after a powerful earthquake shook the Himalayan foothills, Chinese officials reported on Wednesday that more than 400 people trapped by rubble in earthquake-stricken Tibet had been rescued, while an undetermined number remained missing in the bitter cold.
About 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, in China’s Tibet, Tingri, was the epicenter of Tuesday’s magnitude 6.8 earthquake, one of the strongest to strike the area in recent memory.
Buildings in Bhutan, India, and neighboring Nepal were also shaken. Those buried beneath the debris would have had to spend a night in below-freezing conditions twenty-four hours after the earthquake occurred, which would have increased the strain on rescuers searching for survivors in an area about the size of Cambodia.
Overnight, the high-altitude area saw temperatures drop as low as minus 18 degrees Celsius (0 degrees Fahrenheit).
According to specialists, people who are stranded or without shelter run the risk of rapidly becoming hypothermic and may only survive for five to ten hours, even if they are unharmed.
Military and Humanitarian Crises
Families were seen gathered in rows of blue and green tents that were hastily set up by military and humanitarian workers in the communities surrounding the epicentre, where hundreds of aftershocks have been recorded, according to footage that was shown on official broadcaster CCTV.
According to state channel CCTV, there were at least 126 confirmed deaths and 188 injuries on the Tibetan side. There have been no confirmed fatalities in Nepal or anywhere else.
According to a United States Geological Survey investigation, the magnitude of the earthquake caused up to 1.6 meters (5 feet 3 inches) of ground to slip over a distance of 80 kilometers (50 miles) around the epicentre.
According to German climber Jost Kobusch, the earthquake occurred right above the Everest base camp on the Nepali side. He witnessed multiple avalanches crashing down while his tent trembled violently. He was unharmed.
In a video chat with Reuters, Kobusch said, “I’m climbing Everest in the winter by myself and…looks like basically I’m the only mountaineer there, in the base camp there’s nobody.”
Kobusch departed the base camp on Wednesday and was heading down to Namche Bazaar on his route to Kathmandu, according to his expedition organizing business, Satori Adventure.
According to Chinese experts quoted by the state-run Xinhua news agency on Wednesday, no avalanches have been seen on Everest from the Chinese side thus far.
However, there was a lot of damage near the epicentre. According to a preliminary survey, 3,609 residences in the 800,000-person Shigatse region had been damaged, official media said late Tuesday.
Over 14,000 rescue workers had been sent out. At a press conference on Wednesday, local officials said that 484 tourists in Tingri had been safely transferred to the city of Shigatse and that over 46,500 residents affected by the earthquake had been moved.
or a specific category with our 
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.