The China Earthquake Networks Center recorded a Magnitude 7.0 Earthquake at a depth of 10 km beneath Baqên County in northeast Tibet, close to Mount Everest and the border with Tibet slightly before 10.35 pm local time (slightly before 2.35 pm GMT) on Thursday 22 October 2026. At least eighteen people have died as a result of this event, with seventy six people known to have been injured, eleven of them seriously. The Earthquake is known to have caused the collapse of at least 339 houses, however, the nature of the area, with an average altitude of 4800 m above sealevel, and many people living in scattered villages in steep-sided valleys, where temperatures regularly fall below 0°C at night, means that these figures may worsen. There have been a number of aftershocks in the region, leading local authorities to evacuate 12 000 people from their homes.
Earthquake activity in the area is caused by the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, due to the impact of India into Eurasia to the south. The Indian Plate is moving northwards at a rate of 5 cm per year, causing it to impact into Eurasia, which is also moving northward, but only at a rate of 2 cm per year. The collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates has led to the formation of the Himalayan Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau, and the mountains of southwest China, Central Asia and the Hindu Kush.
Much of Tibet and neighbouring areas of Central Asia and the Himalayas, are prone to Earthquakes caused by the impact of the Indian Plate into Eurasia from the south. When two tectonic plates collide in this way and one or both are oceanic then one will be subducted beneath the other (if one of the plates is continental then the other will be subducted), but if both plates are continental then subduction will not fully occur, but instead the plates will crumple, leading to folding and uplift (and quite a lot of Earthquakes).
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