4.5 magnitude earthquake hits Tibet after two others

A magnitude 4.5 earthquake shook western Tibet on Wednesday, with no reports of casualties or material damage, after the region recorded two other earthquakes on Tuesday.

The earthquake struck at 4:16 a.m. local time (9:16 p.m. Tuesday in Lisbon), with its epicenter in Shuanghu County, under the jurisdiction of the sparsely populated city of Naqu, at a depth of 10 kilometers, according to the China Earthquake Network Center.

Wednesday's episode comes after two other tremors were recorded in Tibet on Tuesday.

On the morning of that day, the seismological network recorded a magnitude 4.7 earthquake with its epicenter also in Shuanghu and at a depth of 10 kilometers.

Shortly afterward, another 3.8 magnitude tremor was recorded in Zhongba County, with a hypocenter at a depth of eight kilometers.

Wednesday's tremor occurred about 125 kilometers away from Tuesday's first earthquake.

None of Tuesday's tremors caused casualties or property damage, according to authorities.

In January, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Tibet killed at least 126 people and caused many homes and infrastructure to collapse.

Western China, home to the autonomous regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as provinces such as Gansu and Qinghai, is frequently hit by earthquakes as it is located near the collision point of the Asian and Indian tectonic plates in the Himalayas.

However, they do not usually cause significant personal injury because most of the western part of the country is uninhabited.