Chinese officials have reported that an earthquake has killed at least 53 people in Tibet and left many others trapped.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 62 other people were injured in the quake on Tuesday, citing the regional disaster relief headquarters, as dozens of aftershocks shook the region of western China and the neighbouring state of Nepal.

Some 1,500 fire and rescue workers were deployed to search for people in the rubble, China’s Ministry of Emergency Management said.

The quake struck at 9:05am local time (01:05 GMT) at a depth of 10km (6.2 miles), according to the China Earthquake Networks Centre, which recorded a magnitude of 6.8. The United States Geological Survey reported the earthquake to be magnitude 7.1.

A magnitude 6.8 earthquake is considered strong and capable of causing severe damage. Multiple aftershocks have been reported, with the largest measuring a magnitude 4.4.

Xinhua reported that at least nine people were killed in three townships – Changsuo, Quluo and Cuoguo – in Shigatse’s surrounding Tingri county, where many buildings had collapsed, and local media report that dozens of people are known to have died.

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said images coming out of the affected areas show many collapsed buildings and homes.

“These are very remote villages in mountainous areas that are difficult to access and that difficulty will be increased by the fact that it is winter now, very cold and not very close to any major city,” Yu said.

She added that the numbers are being watched and are expected to climb.

The Reuters news agency said that crumbled shop fronts could be seen in a video showing the aftermath in Lhatse, located about 150km (93 miles) east of Shigatse city, with debris spilling onto the road.

Shigatse is one of Tibet’s holiest cities and the seat of the Panchen Lama, one of the most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism, whose spiritual authority is second only to the Dalai Lama.

Powerful tremors were also felt in northern India’s Bihar state and in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, some 400km (248 miles) away, where residents reportedly ran from their houses as buildings shook.

Areas around Lobuche in Nepal’s Himalayan region near Mount Everest were also rattled by the tremors and a series of aftershocks.

“It shook quite strongly here, everyone is awake, but we don’t know about any damages yet,” said Jagat Prasad Bhusal, a government official in Nepal’s Namche region, which lies near Everest.

There were no reports of casualties in Nepal so far, though police and other security forces have been mobilised to collect information on the impact of the quake, a local official told the Reuters news agency.

Nepal and southwestern parts of China have been hit frequently by earthquakes.

According to CCTV, there have been 29 earthquakes with magnitudes of 3 or higher within 200km (124 miles) of the Shigatse quake epicentre in the past five years, all of which were smaller than the most recent.

A huge earthquake in China’s Sichuan province in 2008 killed almost 70,000 people.

In 2015, a magnitude 7.8 quake, Nepal’s worst, struck near Kathmandu, killing about 9,000 people and injuring thousands.