More than 100 people have been killed after an earthquake struck remote western Nepal on Friday.
Security forces have been deployed to help rescue efforts in the rugged districts of Jajarkot and West Rukum, 500km (310 miles) west of Kathmandu.
Strong tremors were felt far away in the Nepalese capital and in cities in neighbouring India, including Delhi.
The army spokesman said more than 100 people had been injured. Jajarkot’s hospital is packed with the wounded.
Three more tremors were felt within an hour of the quake, and many people have spent the rest of the night in the open because of fear of further quakes and damage to their houses.
Video footage on local media showed crumbled facades of multi-storied brick houses. People were pictured digging through rubble in the dark to pull survivors from the remains of collapsed buildings in posts on social media.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal arrived in the affected region on Saturday, after expressing his “deep sorrow” at the loss of life and property wrought by the quake, on social media platform X. He said he had ordered security agencies to immediately launch rescue and relief operations.
But those search and rescue operations are being hampered by roads becoming blocked by landslides that were triggered by the quake.
The police chief of Jajarkot district Suresh Sunar told the Reuters news agency it was difficult to get a full picture of what had happened.
“I am out in the open myself. We are collecting details but due to cold and night it is difficult to get information from remote areas,” Mr Sunar told Reuters.
The earthquake was recorded at 23:47 local time (18:02 GMT), according to Nepal’s Monitoring and Research Centre.
The US Geological Survey measured the earthquake at a magnitude of 5.6, and said it was a shallow earthquake, meaning it happened closer to the earth’s surface.
Nepal is situated along the Himalayas, where there is a lot of seismic activity.
Last month, a 6.3-magnitude earthquake was registered in the western district of Bajhang, resulting in injuries.
In 2015, the country suffered two devastating earthquakes in which 9,000 people were killed and 22,309 injured.
The first, on 25 April 2015, was a 7.8-magnitude quake which caused most of the damage and loss of life. A large number of aftershocks followed, including one that measured 7.3 in May of that year.
The quakes destroyed or damaged more than 800,000 houses mainly in the western and central districts, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
Government buildings, some stretches of roads and Kathmandu Valley’s famous historic monuments – Unesco world heritage sites – were destroyed or damaged with many villages north of Kathmandu flattened.
7 comments
You need to participate in a contest for top-of-the-line blogs on the web. I’ll recommend this site!
Throughout this great design of things you’ll secure an A+ for effort and hard work. Exactly where you actually misplaced everybody was on your specifics. You know, people say, details make or break the argument.. And that couldn’t be more true right here. Having said that, allow me tell you exactly what did deliver the results. The text is definitely very persuasive and this is possibly why I am making an effort in order to comment. I do not make it a regular habit of doing that. 2nd, even though I can easily notice a leaps in reasoning you come up with, I am not sure of how you seem to connect your points which make your final result. For right now I will, no doubt yield to your point however trust in the near future you actually connect the facts much better.
Fantastic items from you, man. I’ve remember your stuff prior to and you’re simply extremely excellent. I actually like what you have acquired right here, certainly like what you’re stating and the best way in which you assert it. You make it entertaining and you still take care of to stay it wise. I cant wait to learn much more from you. That is really a terrific site.
Hello there, You’ve done an excellent job. I will definitely digg it and personally suggest to my friends. I’m confident they will be benefited from this site.
You made some nice points there. I looked on the internet for the subject and found most individuals will consent with your site.
hello there and thank you in your information – I’ve certainly picked up anything new from right here. I did alternatively expertise several technical points the usage of this website, since I experienced to reload the site a lot of occasions prior to I could get it to load properly. I have been puzzling over in case your web hosting is OK? Now not that I’m complaining, but slow loading cases instances will very frequently affect your placement in google and can damage your high quality ranking if ads and ***********|advertising|advertising|advertising and *********** with Adwords. Anyway I am including this RSS to my email and can look out for a lot extra of your respective fascinating content. Make sure you replace this again soon..
Hello just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your article seem to be running off the screen in Safari. I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know. The style and design look great though! Hope you get the issue resolved soon. Thanks