Large Quake Jolts Remote Tibet Region
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BEIJING — A powerful earthquake hit a remote area of China’s mountainous Tibet region on Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties, officials said.
Chinese seismologists originally said the quake measured a magnitude 7.9 but later revised that to 7.5. They did not explain the adjustment.
Geologists in the United States and Japan both put the quake at 7.9, saying it was believed to be the largest instrumentally recorded in the area.
The quake hit about 430 miles northwest of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, near the Himalayan area’s border with China’s Xinjiang region, where several earthquakes this year have killed dozens of people.
At the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., geophysicist Stewart Koyanagi said: “This earthquake is really big. I am sure there have been bigger ones in that area, but we don’t have any recorded larger than today’s.”
An official with the Tibet Seismological Bureau said authorities were checking to see if there were any casualties or damage.
“That is a really remote place. There aren’t many people out there,” the official said.
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