At least 16 dead when powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake strikes in Tibet, local officials say

More than a dozen people were killed and hundreds of homes destroyed when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit China's Tibet region on Thursday evening local time, according to local officials.

The United States Geological Survey said the quake occurred at 10:33 p.m. local time, with its epicenter 119 miles east-northeast of Nagqu, in a sparsely populated, high-altitude area of northern Tibet. 

China's state news agency Xinhua, citing local officials, reported that at least 16 people were killed and 32 wounded in the earthquake, according to Agence France-Presse. More than 300 homes collapsed in the earthquake, Xinhua reported.

It was the biggest earthquake in the region in the last five years, China's national broadcaster CCTV said.

Nagqu is more than 186 miles north of Tibet's capital, Lhasa.

The USGS put the earthquake's depth at 11 miles. Xinhua, citing the China Earthquake Networks Center, put the depth at 6.2 miles. 

The earthquake comes less than two months after a border region of Nepal and Tibet was struck by devastating flash flooding that left hundreds of people dead and destroyed several communities. Authorities said the flooding was caused by the collapse of a glacier.