00:00Videos shot by eyewitnesses on Tuesday showed streets of Lhatsi County in Tibet's Shigatse
00:09covered in debris after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake rocked the northern foothills of the Himalayas,
00:15also shaking buildings in neighboring Nepal, Bhutan and India in the process.
00:20China's state-run news agency Xinhua reported that at least 53 people had been killed and
00:2662 injured on the Tibetan side.
00:28The quake hit at 9.05 a.m. with its epicenter located in Tingri, a rural Chinese county
00:35known as the Northern Gateway to the Everest region, at a depth of 10 kilometers, according
00:40to the China Earthquake Network Center.
00:43The U.S. Geological Service put the quake's magnitude at 7.1.
00:48The epicenter was around 80 kilometers north of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain
00:53and a popular destination for climbers and trekkers.
00:57CCTV reported that Tingri has a population of approximately 6,900 people within a 20-kilometer
01:04radius and 27 villages within the area.
01:08Some 22,000 disaster relief items, including tents and folding beds, together with special
01:14relief materials for high-altitude and frigid areas, have been dispatched by central authorities
01:20to the quake-hit area.
01:22Over 1,500 local firefighters and rescue workers have also been dispatched to the ground.
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