Nepal:
Rescue workers in Nepal on Saturday began digging through the debris of collapsed homes with their bare hands, searching for survivors after the country’s worst earthquake in eight years that killed 137 people and devastated New Delhi. Till now buildings were shaken.
Nepal’s National Seismological Center said the quake, which had a magnitude of 6.4, struck at 11:47 pm (1802 GMT) on Friday. The German Research Center for Geosciences downgraded the earthquake’s magnitude from 6.2 to 5.7, while the US Geological Survey estimated its magnitude at 5.6.
The earthquake is the deadliest since 2015 when two earthquakes killed nearly 9,000 people in the Himalayan country. Entire towns, centuries-old temples and other historical sites were then reduced to rubble and more than one million homes were destroyed, costing the economy $6 billion.
Authorities fear the death toll could rise as first responders arrived early Saturday morning in mountainous terrain near the epicenter, about 500 km (300 miles) west of the capital Kathmandu, and began searching for survivors. Was.
“The number of injured could be in the hundreds and the number of deaths could rise,” Jajarkot district official Harish Chandra Sharma told Reuters by phone.
Police spokesman Kuber Kadayat said 92 people were killed in Jajarkot in Karnali province and 36 in neighboring Rukum West district. The epicenter of the earthquake was in Ramidanda village.
A Prime Minister’s Office official said at least 85 people were injured in Rukum West and 55 in Jajarkot, while Sharma said at least 50 people were in hospitals in Jajarkot alone.
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“Many houses have collapsed; many others have developed cracks,” Sharma said. Thousands of residents spent the night in cold, open fields because they were too afraid to go into damaged homes due to the aftershocks. ” “I’m not able to go in myself.”
Police officer Namraj Bhattarai said that to reach the affected areas for search and rescue, roads blocked by landslides caused by the earthquake would have to be cleared.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal left for the area on Saturday morning with a 16-member army medical team to oversee search, rescue and relief, his office said.
Posting on social media platform, Dahal expressed deep grief over the loss of life and property in the earthquake and ordered security agencies to immediately launch rescue and relief operations.
Local media footage showed broken parts of multi-storey brick buildings and large pieces of furniture scattered about. Video on X showed people running into the street as some buildings were evacuated.
“Houses have collapsed. People came out of their homes. I am among the crowd of frightened residents. We are trying to find out details of the damage,” police officer Santosh Rocca said over the phone.
