Nepal's state head arrives at impacted region with a 16-part armed force clinical group to regulate search, salvage and help
Saturday, November 04, 2023
Officials fear the death toll from Friday's earthquake could rise.
The Prime Minister of Nepal will reach the affected area to oversee the operations.
He expresses deep sorrow at the loss of life and property.
At least 132 people were killed and dozens injured in Nepal when a strong earthquake struck the western district of Jayarkot, officials said on Saturday, as houses in the area collapsed and buildings as far away as New Delhi in neighboring India shook.
The 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck at 11:47 p.m. (1802 GMT) on Friday, Nepal's National Seismological Center said. The German Geosciences Research Center measured the tremor at 5.7, downgrading it from 6.2, while the US Geological Survey put it at 5.6, Reuters reported.
The earthquake is the deadliest since 2015, when two earthquakes in the Himalayan country killed about 9,000 people.
Officials feared the death toll from Friday's quake could rise as they failed to establish contact in a hilly area near the epicenter, about 500 km (300 miles) west of the capital Kathmandu, where tremors were also felt. The district has a population of 190,000 with villages scattered in the remote hills.
"The number of injured could be in the hundreds and the death toll could also rise," Jajarkot district official Harish Chandra Sharma told Reuters by phone.
Police spokesman Kuber Kadayat said 92 people were killed in Jajarkot and 36 in neighboring Rukum West district, both in Karnali province. The epicenter was in the village of Ramidanda.
At least 85 people were injured in Rukum West and 55 in Jajarkot, an official from the Prime Minister's Office said, while Sharma said at least 50 people were in hospitals in Jajarkot alone.
"Many houses collapsed, cracks formed in many others. Thousands of residents spent the night in the cold, open space, too afraid to go into the cracked houses when the aftershocks hit them," Sharma said. “I couldn't go in myself.
Search and rescue have to clear roads blocked by earthquake-triggered landslides to reach the affected areas, police officer Namaraj Bhattarai said.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal flew to the area early Saturday with a 16-member army medical team to oversee search, rescue and relief efforts, his office said.
Posting on X, earlier Twitter, Dahal expressed deep grief over the loss of life and property in the earthquake and ordered security agencies to launch immediate rescue and relief operations.
Footage from local media showed crumbling facades of multi-storey brick houses with large pieces of furniture strewn about. Videos on X showed people running into the street as some buildings were evacuated.
"Houses have collapsed. People have run out of their homes. I am outside in a crowd of frightened residents. We are trying to find out the details of the damage," police official Santosh Rokka said by phone.
