RESCUERS in the freezing, high-altitude Tibet region in western China searched a second day for any remaining victims of a deadly earthquake that struck near a holy city for Tibetan Buddhists, before shifting their focus to resettling the survivors.

More tents, quilts, stoves and other relief items were being delivered today to people whose homes were uninhabitable or unsafe. Temperatures fall well below freezing overnight in an area with an average altitude of about 13,800 feet.

In video aired by CCTV, workers could be seen erecting rows of tents with metal frames and stakes after nightfall on Tuesday. Meant as temporary shelter, they were lined with quilted padding to keep out the cold.

The confirmed death toll stood at 126, with another 188 injured as of Tuesday evening; no further updates were issued during the day today.

Hong Li, the director of Tibet’s Emergency Management Department, told a late afternoon news conference that the work had shifted from search and rescue to resettlement and reconstruction.

The earthquake struck an outlying county in the city of Shigatse, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, the second-highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism. It was not immediately known whether he was in his Tashi Lhunpo Monastery at the time, or how much damage Tibet’s second-largest city sustained.

More than 500 aftershocks were recorded after the earthquake, which the US Geological Survey said measured magnitude 7.1.

The quake was also about 50 miles from Mount Everest and the border with Nepal, where the quake sent people running out of their homes in the capital.

The death toll from the quake included at least 22 of the 222 residents of Gurum, the official Xinhua News Agency cited the village’s Communist Party chief, Tsering Phuntsog, as saying.

The victims included his 74-year-old mother, and several other of his relatives remained buried in the debris.

“Even young people couldn’t run out of the houses when the earthquake hit, let alone old people and children,” Tsering Phuntsog said.

State broadcaster CCTV showed orange-suited rescue workers with sniffing search dogs clambering over huge chunks of debris in the wreckage of homes.

In the hardest-hit areas, rows of houses had been reduced to rubble. Blue disaster emergency tents had been set up nearby.

More than 3,600 houses collapsed, according to a preliminary survey, and 46,000 residents had been relocated, state media said.