The 1952 Damxung earthquake struck

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

with

moment magnitude The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 pape ...

of 7.5 in the early morning hours of August 18. The epicenter was located in the

Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains The Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains (officially spelt Nyainqêntanglha Mountains in Chinese) are a long mountain range, and subrange of the Transhimalaya System, located in Tibet and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Geography One source ...

Damxung County Damxung is a county of Lhasa City, lying to the north of its main center of Chengguan, in the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Its administrative seat is Damquka. The terrain is rugged, including the western Nyenchen ...

Lhasa Prefecture Lhasa is a prefecture-level city, one of the main administrative divisions of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It covers an area of of rugged and sparsely populated terrain. Its capital and largest city is Lhasa, with around 300,000 re ...

Tibet Autonomous Region The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a Provinces of China, province-level Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China in Southwest China. I ...

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. There was significant damage in Damxung (

Dangquka Dangquka, or Damquka (; bo, འདམ་ཆུ་ཁ།) is a small modern Tibetan town of low-barrack like buildings and is the administrative centre of Damxung County, roughly two and a half hours by road northeast of Lhasa, the capital of the ...

) and nearby Nagqu County. It was felt in

Lhasa Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level city, prefecture-level Lhasa (prefecture-level city), Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Regio ...

, over to the south. The earthquake damaged

Reting Monastery Reting Monastery () is an historically important Buddhist monastery in Lhünzhub County in Lhasa, Ü-Tsang, Tibet. It is also commonly spelled "Radreng." History Reting Monastery was founded by Atiśa's chief disciple Dromtön in 1057 in t ...

and 54 people died at Reting (Razheng) and Tangmu. The total number of fatalities is unknown. Damxung County suffered another significant earthquake in 2008, further southwest parallel to the Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains.

References

{{Earthquakes in China Earthquakes in Tibet August 1952 events in Asia 1952 earthquakes 1952 in Asia 1952 in Tibet