At least 32 people have been killed in an earthquake in Tibet in western China, state media say

A powerful earthquake shook a mountainous area in western China near Nepal on Tuesday morning, killing at least 32 people.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 38 others were injured, citing the regional disaster management headquarters.

The US Geological Survey said the magnitude 7.1 earthquake occurred in the Tibet region at a depth of about 10 kilometers (6 miles). China recorded the magnitude as 6.8.

The epicenter was located where the plates of India and Eurasia collide, causing a rise in the Himalayan mountains strong enough to change the height of some of the highest peaks in the world.

According to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, the average altitude in the area around the epicenter is about 4,000 meters.

CCTV said there were a handful of communities within a five-kilometer radius of the epicenter, which was some 390 kilometers from Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, and about 22 kilometers from the region’s second-largest city, Xigaze.

In Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, the earthquake sent residents running from their homes after being woken up by the quake. No information was immediately available from the remote, mountainous areas closer to the epicenter across the border.

There have been 10 earthquakes with a magnitude of at least six in the past century in the area where Tuesday’s quake struck, the USGS said.