At least 48 people have died and another 1,261 have been injured in Nepal due to the latest large earthquake there, said Nepalese government spokesman Minendra Rijal. Thirty-two of the Asian nation’s 75 districts were affected.
As of 9 p.m. (11 a.m. ET), dozens of people had been rescued alive, according to Rijal.
At least 17 people in India have also died as a result of the tremor, Home Ministry spokesman Kuldeep Dhatwalia told CNN. Sixteen of those deaths were in Bihar state, with the other in Uttar Pradesh. And a woman in Tibet, which is part of China, also was killed when falling rocks hit her car as it traveled through Gyirong, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported. In the same report, local police officer Wu Aijun said that landslides had cut off some roads in the area.
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Just over two weeks after thousands died in a mammoth earthquake, Nepal got hit hard again Tuesday — with another powerful tremor that has left dozens more dead, more than 1,000 injured and questions about what’s next for the already traumatized Asian nation.
The fact that Nepal just endured a similar horror, not to mention waves of aftershocks that followed, didn’t diminish Tuesday’s damage or shock. More buildings collapsed, more landslides rumbled, and more people scrambled for their lives.
“For the first seconds, it was complete silence. By the fifth second, everybody started to scream,” said Marc Sarrado, a 41-year-old documentarian from Spain who was in Nepal’s Nuwakot Valley, about two hours northwest of Kathmandu, when the quake hit.
“It was really, really intense. Even when the shaking stopped, people were still screaming. They were completely panicked, because they knew exactly what it was.”
Tuesday’s magnitude-7.3 earthquake struck about 9.3 miles (15 kilometers) deep, the U.S. Geological Survey said. For comparison’s sake, the magnitude-7.8 quake on April 25 — which killed more than 8,000 — was centered east of, rather than west of Kathmandu and a little further away (at 60 miles). That earlier tremor was also more than three times bigger and 5.6 times stronger, in terms of energy released, according to the USGS.
So, yes, it could have been worse. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous.
Nepalese government spokesman Minendra Rijal said that at least 48 people in his country had died as of Tuesday night. More than 1,260 had been counted as injured at that point, with dozens having been rescued alive from rubble.
The carnage wasn’t confined to Nepal. China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that a woman in Tibet died Tuesday afternoon after falling rocks hit her car. At least 17 more people died in northeastern India, according to Indian Home Ministry spokesman Kuldeep Dhatwalia. India’s military was also involved inside Nepal, caring for casualties and flying them by helicopter from the village of Mrigu to Kathmandu.
This latest quake only adds to the stress for residents of a region who had been trying to return to normalcy, until Mother Nature reasserted herself.
It was “like the whole Earth was alive,” said Asim Rai, after huddling with his family in Kathmandu.
Throngs rush out into the streets of Kathmandu
Once again, residents of Nepal’s capital and most populated city found themselves in the middle of a nightmare, in the middle of the day.
Open space is often a precious commodity in Kathmandu, but especially on Tuesday. The city’s roads quickly clogged with people, many of them crying, according to Sajan Sharma.
CNN iReporter Prashup Rajbhandar initially huddled with loved ones as his four-story house swung back and forth, before rushing outside. Now, fearing a crack in his house, he’s not sure if he’ll ever go back home — instead making do by cooking on his lawn and sleeping in cars.
“People are very scared,” Rajbhandari said. “And they don’t know what is going on.”
Another resident of the capital, Mingma Sherpa, said he and his friends jumped out of his car when they felt the earth begin to tremble. They ran with crowds of other people desperately seeking open space in a congested area of Kathmandu where there are few.
The quake also caused a spasm of chaos at Kathmandu’s airport, where Channel NewsAsia reporter Jack Board filmed hundreds of people running from the building as the ground rumbled.
Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, saw “hundreds of people pouring out of … buildings (amid) a lot of confusion, a lot of anxiety” as he drove around Kathmandu. Colleagues reported many buildings having collapsed and others on the verge.
“You never get used to seeing telephone poles swaying and surfing past you,” he told CNN. “Or buildings just wobbling … as the earth moves beneath your feet.”
A return of landslides, destruction and fear
Source: CNN News