At least 157 were killed and over 100 injured in a 6.4 magnitude earthquake that hit northwest Nepal on Friday night.
The quake rocked the rugged districts of Jajarkot and West Rukum, about 310 miles west of Kathmandu, just before midnight.
Rescue workers dug through the rubble of collapsed houses with their hands on Saturday, searching for survivors after the country’s worst earthquake in eight years.
The quake’s magnitude was 6.4, Nepal’s National Seismological Center said, and shook buildings as far away as New Delhi.
The German Research Center for Geosciences measured it at 5.7 and the US Geological Survey at 5.6.
Although the quake’s magnitude was not severe, the damage and death toll would likely be high due to the poor quality of construction in the area and that it struck while people slept, officials said.
The remote, hilly villages in the Himalayan region can only be reached by foot, and houses there are built mainly with logs and rocks.
Soldiers worked to clear roads that were blocked by landslides triggered by the earthquake while officials scrambled to open up additional beds as the injured packed Jajarkot’s hospital.
“The number of injured could be in the hundreds and the deaths could go up as well,” Jajarkot district official Harish Chandra Sharma told Reuters by phone.
The quake is the deadliest since 2015 when about 9,000 people were killed in two earthquakes. Whole towns, centuries-old temples and other historic sites were reduced to rubble then, with more than a million houses destroyed, at a cost to the economy of $6 billion.
Officials said 99 people were killed in Jajarkot and 38 in neighboring Rukum West district, both in Karnali province.
The epicenter was in the village of Ramidanda.
Three towns and three villages were known to be affected in Jajarkot, which has a population of 190,000 with villages scattered in remote hills, authorities said.
At least 85 people were injured in Rukum West and 55 in Jajarkot, an official in the prime minister’s office said.
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“Many houses have collapsed, many others have developed cracks. Thousands of residents spent the entire night in cold, open grounds because they were too scared to go in into the cracked houses as aftershocks struck,” Sharma said.
“I have myself not been able to go in.”
Local TV channels showed rescuers digging through the rubble with their bare hands looking for survivors in the debris of collapsed houses. Injured people were shown being carried to a rescue helicopter to move them to hospitals.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal flew to the area early on Saturday with a 16-member army medical team to oversee search, rescue and relief, his office said.
His office appealed to political parties, social workers and the public to donate funds to help arrange food, water, clothes and tents for the survivors.
A small aeroplane carrying medical supplies and health workers was diverted to nearby Surkhet after it failed to land in Chaurjahari in nearby Rukum district due to bad weather, said army spokesman Krishna Bhandari.
Local media footage showed crumbled facades of multi-storied brick houses, with large pieces of furniture scattered. Videos on X showed people running into the street as some buildings were evacuated.
The tremors were felt in New Delhi, about 370 miles away, and other parts of north India, shaking buildings and forcing people to run into the street late in the night.
Authorities in the northern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, both of which border Nepal, said there were no reports of any damage there.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was deeply saddened by the loss of lives and damage in Nepal.
“India stands in solidarity with the people of Nepal and is ready to extend all possible assistance. Our thoughts are with the bereaved families and we wish the injured a quick recovery,” he posted on X.
With Post wires.
