Seismology centers in Europe and China recorded an earthquake in Tibet this Thursday (27), one day after a devastating flood on the border between China and Nepal left at least 395 people dead and more than 1,000 missing. According to the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), the tremor had a magnitude of 5 and struck at a depth of ten kilometers, with its epicenter in the Nagqu area of northern Tibet, hundreds of kilometers from the border region hit by the waters.

There is disagreement over the quake's strength. While the GFZ put the magnitude at 5.0, China's earthquake monitoring center, an agency linked to the country's civil defense, registered 4.7, according to the state news agency Xinhua, cited by Folha de S.Paulo and InfoMoney. As of this writing, there was no official confirmation of casualties or damage caused by the earthquake.

For Brazil, interest in the episode is mostly indirect. China is Brazil's largest trading partner and sits alongside it in Brics, the bloc that also includes Russia, India and South Africa and has been expanding cooperation on climate risk management. There is also a precise domestic parallel: the Himalayan flood comes just over two years after the 2024 tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul, when floods killed more than 180 people and pushed adaptation to extreme weather to the center of Brazil's public debate.

Flood submerged villages and forced helicopter rescue

Wednesday's flood (26) was triggered by a collapse of ice, mud and rock, which produced a sudden flash flood on the Nepal-China border, according to InfoMoney. Of the confirmed deaths, 392 were recorded in Nepal, according to local authorities, and three on the Chinese side, according to state media. Entire villages were submerged in mud, and more than 1,000 people remain missing, among them hundreds of foreigners, since the area is popular with trekkers.

Nepalese authorities used helicopters to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands of people stranded in towns and valleys, Folha reported. On the Chinese side, a blocked river formed a barrier lake that is now being monitored because of the risk of a breach. China's Ministry of Water Resources sent a team of experts to Gyirong county and instructed local authorities to watch the lake and the rainfall, according to Xinhua. Beijing activated a Level IV flood response plan in Tibet, the lowest tier of China's emergency scale.

The sequence of disasters exposes the vulnerability of the Himalayas, the mountain range that holds some of the world's highest peaks and runs along the China-Nepal border. Beyond being a zone of intense seismic activity, the region faces glacier retreat, a phenomenon that raises the risk of glacial lake outbursts and sudden floods like this week's.