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April 26, 2015

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1,182 killed by Nepal quake

A POWERFUL earthquake struck Nepal yesterday, killing at least 1,182 people across four countries as the violently shaking earth collapsed houses, leveled centuries-old temples and triggered avalanches on Mount Everest. It was the worst tremor to hit the poor South Asian nation in more than 80 years.

At least 1,130 people were confirmed dead in Nepal, according to police. Another 36 were killed in India, 12 in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region and two in Bangladesh. Four Chinese citizens died at the Nepal-China border, and the death toll is almost certain to rise, said deputy Inspector General of Police Komal Singh Bam.

The four Chinese nationals killed were a tourist, a climber, and two people working for a Chinese company in Nepal, the Chinese embassy said, adding that a further five Chinese citizens had been critically injured in the earthquake.

It was a few minutes before noon when the earthquake, with a preliminary magnitude of 8.1, began to rumble across the densely populated Kathmandu Valley. It then rippled through the capital Kathmandu and spread in all directions — north toward the Himalayas and Tibet, south to the Indo-Gangetic plains, east toward the Brahmaputra delta of Bangladesh and west toward the historical city of Lahore in Pakistan.

A magnitude-7 aftershock hit about an hour later, and smaller aftershocks continued to jolt the region for hours.

Residents ran out of their homes and buildings in panic. Walls tumbled, trees swayed, power lines came crashing down and large cracks opened up on streets and walls. Clouds of dust began to swirl all around.

“Our village has been almost wiped out. Most of the houses are either buried by landslide or damaged by shaking,” said Vim Tamang, a resident of the village of Manglung close to the epicenter.

Half of the people who live in the village were either missing or dead, he said.

“All the villagers have gathered in the open area. We don’t know what to do. We are feeling helpless,” he said when contacted by telephone.

Meteorologists said rain and thunderstorms were forecast for last night and today.

Within hours of the quake, hospitals began to fill up with dozens of injured people. Many came to the main hospital in central Kathmandu.

Among them was Pushpa Das, a laborer, who ran from his house when the first quake struck but couldn’t escape a collapsing wall that injured his arm.

“It was very scary. The earth was moving ... I am waiting for treatment but the (hospital) staff is overwhelmed,” he said, gingerly holding his right arm with his left hand.

As he spoke, dozens more people showed up with injuries, mostly from falling bricks.

Following the quake, Kathmandu’s international airport was shut down.

While the extent of the damage and scale of the disaster have yet to be ascertained, the quake will put a huge strain on the resources of this poor country best known as the home of Mount Everest, the world’s highest, and its rich Hindu culture.

The economy of Nepal, a nation of 27.8 million people, is heavily reliant on tourism, principally trekking and Himalayan mountain climbing.

The earthquake hit at 11:56am local time at Lamjung, about 80 kilometers northwest of Kathmandu.

Its depth was only 11 kilometers, the largest shallow quake since the magnitude-8.3 temblor off the coast of Chile on April 1 last year.

The shallower the quake the more destructive power it carries, and witnesses said the trembling and swaying of the Earth went on for several minutes.

A magnitude-7 quake is capable of widespread and heavy damage while a magnitude-8 quake can cause tremendous damage.

Yesterday’s tremor — which was of the same magnitude as the one that hit San Francisco in 1906 — was about 16 times more powerful than the magnitude-7.3 quake that devastated Haiti in 2010.

“The shallowness of the source made the ground-shaking at the surface worse than it would have been for a deeper earthquake,” said David Rothery, professor of planetary geosciences at the Open University in Milton Keynes, north of London.

A major factor in the damage was that the buildings were not built to be quake-proof. An earthquake this size in Tokyo or Los Angeles, which have building codes for quake resistance, would not be nearly as devastating, he said.

The power of the tremors brought down several buildings in the center of the capital, the ancient Old Kathmandu, including centuries-old temples and towers.

Among them was the nine-story Dharahara Tower, one of Kathmandu’s landmarks built by Nepal’s royal rulers as a watchtower in the 1800s and a UNESCO-recognized historical monument. It was reduced to rubble and there were reports of people trapped underneath.

Hundreds of people buy tickets on weekends to go up to the viewing platform on the eighth floor, but it was not clear how many were up there when the tower collapsed. Video footage showed people digging through the rubble of the tower, looking for survivors.

The Kathmandu Valley is densely populated with nearly 2.5 million people, and the quality of buildings is often poor.

In Kathmandu, dozens of people gathered in the parking lot of Norvic International Hospital, where thin mattresses were spread on the ground for patients rushed outside, some wearing hospital pajamas.

A woman with a bandage on her head sat in a set of chairs pulled from the hospital waiting room.

Doctors and nurses hooked up some patients to intravenous drips in the parking lot, or were giving people oxygen.

A Swedish woman, Jenny Adhikari, who lives in Nepal, told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that she was riding a bus in the town of Melamchi when the earth began to move.

“A huge stone crashed only about 20 meters from the bus. All the houses around me have tumbled down. I think there are lot of people who have died,” she was quoted as saying.

Melamchi is about 45 kilometers northeast of Kathmandu.

Nepal suffered its worst recorded earthquake in 1934, which measured 8.0 and all but destroyed the cities of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan.

Yesterday’s sustained quake also was felt in India’s capital of New Delhi and several other Indian cities.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called a meeting of top government officials to review the damage and disaster preparedness in parts of India that felt strong tremors.

The Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Sikkim, which share a border with Nepal, have reported building damage. There have also been reports of damage in the northeastern state of Assam.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif offered “all possible help” to Nepal.




 

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