Nepal earthquake kills 9 in China

A handful of communities are living within 5 km of the epicentre, which was 380 km from Lhasa, the Tibetan capital

Beijing: A strong earthquake shook a mountainous region in western China near Nepal on Tuesday morning, killing at least nine people, state media said. State broadcaster CCTV cited the Ministry of Emergency Management for the death toll but did not give details on the casualties.

The magnitude 7.1 quake struck in a mountainous area in the Tibet region, near the border with Nepal, at a depth of about 10 km, the US Geological Survey said.

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China’s earthquake monitoring agency recorded the magnitude as 6.8. The average altitude in the area around the epicenter is about 13,800 feet, CCTV said.

The CCTV online report said there were a handful of communities within 5 km of the epicentre, which was 380 km from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.