Over 60 Killed, More Than 1000 Injured as Earthquakes Hit Nepal

Mangalore Today News Network

Nepal, May 13, 2015: Nepali and US troops are scouring the area worst hit by a second large earthquake for a missing US Marine helicopter, a zone described by frightened residents as a "graveyard" because the quake flattened so many houses. Nepali government officials said the search is focused on a village called Sunkhani.

   

Most of the reported fatalities are in villages and towns such as Charikot, the capital of Dolakha, which were only just beginning to pick up the pieces from the massive April 25 quake that killed more than 8,000 people.
   
Nepal’s Home Ministry official Laxmi Prasad Dhakal says at least 65 people have been killed in Tuesday`s 7.3 magnitude quake, which destroyed swaths of housing in the district of Dolakha east of the capital, Kathmandu.
   
US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Biswal will be travelling to quake-hit Nepal this week to take stock of the American relief and rescue operation.
   
As per All India Radio, the toll touchs 50 in Nepal while the number of deaths in Bihar from the quake rises to 42. Two people died in Uttar Pradesh while one death was reported from Tibet.
   
People living in Nepal`s mountains have long accepted the risk of landslides and floods.
   
Areas of Nepal remain perilously unstable following last month`s devastating earthquake, and, as Tuesday`s tremor showed, landslides pose an ongoing menace that will only increase when seasonal monsoon rains begin to fall in the coming weeks.

   
A US Marine Corps helicopter carrying out earthquake relief in Charikot has been reported missing with six Marines and two Nepalese soldiers on board, say officials.
   
Eight people died in Kathmandu Valley and two major buildings collapsed in the capital. But Dolakha and Sindhupalchowk, two of districts worst affected by the original quake, bore the brunt of the damage. In Dolakha alone, 26 people were confirmed dead.
   
Tuesday`s quake was felt as far away as New Delhi, and caused buildings to collapse in Tibet in neighbouring China, killing at least one person there.
   
A second tremor of 6.3-magnitude struck Nepal around half an hour later, followed by yet more aftershocks, according to the USGS.
   
The 7.3-magnitude quake struck at 12:35 pm, some 76 kilometres (47 miles) east of Kathmandu, the US Geological Survey said, after a 7.8-magnitude quake on April 25 killed more than 8,000 people.
   
Authorities in Nepal said at least 48 people were killed and more than 1,100 injured, while 17 people also died across the border in northern India.
   
A new earthquake and powerful aftershocks killed dozens of people and brought fresh terror to a traumatised Nepal on Tuesday as buildings already damaged in a monster quake last month came tumbling down.

 

Courtesy: Zeenews