(Image source from: Nepal earthquake-7.3 magnitude tremor hits near Mount Everest})
A powerful earthquake shook Nepal on Tuesday, less than three weeks after a devastating temblor there killed more than 8,000 people. Dozens of deaths and more than a thousand injuries were reported.
Residents of Kathmandu, the capital, reported that buildings swayed in the earthquake, which was felt as far away as New Delhi. The United States Geological Survey assigned the quake a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, with an epicenter about 50 miles east of Kathmandu, near the border with China. The April 25 earthquake registered magnitude 7.8 and was centered west of Kathmandu.
“We’re obviously hearing of buildings destroyed, buildings collapsed, buildings falling, we’re hearing about casualties, but the numbers are not known yet,” said Jamie McGoldrick, Nepal resident coordinator for the United Nations. He said several international rescue teams, including American and Indian teams, were still in Kathmandu but had not yet been asked to deploy.
By late afternoon, Nepal’s National Emergency Operation Center had reported 36 deaths and 1,117 injuries.
The quake on Tuesday hit Nepal less than three weeks after a temblor killed more than 8,000 people.
Four people died in Chautara, a town in the Sindhupalchowk district east of Kathmandu where several buildings collapsed, said Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration. “A search and rescue crew of some locals and international groups are digging through rubble as best they can,” Mr. Dillon said.
“I can still see massive clouds of mud and dust around, as massive landslides continue to happen,” Bharat Shrestha, who was participating in rescue operations in a town about seven miles west of Chautara, said by telephone. “Concrete houses in Chautara have crumbled, and the main road leading to Chautara is completely blocked with debris.”
Krishna Prasad Gaiwali, the chief district officer in Sindhupalchowk, reported “huge damage in our district.”
Since the April 25 quake, people across Nepal have feared another powerful one, in part because the first one left many buildings cracked and unstable. An American structural engineer who examined buildings in Bhaktapur, a city near Kathmandu, said that he believed one-third of the buildings he had seen would have to be demolished.
Nevertheless, many families have moved back into their apartments, after living under tents for the week after the first quake.
Ian Norton, foreign medical team coordinator for the World Health Organization, said people in many parts of the country had begun salvaging things from “very precarious houses” and could have been injured in Tuesday’s quake. There were reports of deaths in Bhaktapur, where a number of unstable houses had fallen.
“We are still very worried by the magnitude, and the precarious buildings,” Mr. Norton said. “We are in the injury management phase right now. We are now expecting that people in smaller houses in the districts will start to come forward with their injuries.”
Many teams of volunteers had been working in remote villages to deliver aid when the quake struck. Some said they remained cut off and frightened on Tuesday afternoon, unable to return to the main road.
Prakash Banjara, 22, said he and a group of 15 students had been delivering rice and other food to villages in Sindhupalchowk when “the earth started shaking so violently.”
“The mountains before my eyes started tumbling down in massive landslides,” Mr. Banjara said. “There are continuous landslides in this area.” He said the road was “completely blocked by landslides, and there is no way we can get out if authorities do not come to our rescue soon.”
- Manohar. M
