A MAJOR earthquake has hit a remote mountain region of Nepal, killing at least 37 people and triggering landslides and toppling buildings less than three weeks after the Himalayan nation was ravaged by its worst quake in decades.
The magnitude-7.3 quake – centred midway between the capital of Kathmandu and Mount Everest – hit hardest in districts north east of the capital.
It terrified a nation already shell-shocked and struggling after a more powerful quake on April 25 killed more than 8,150 and flattened entire villages, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.
Information was slow to reach Kathmandu after the latest tremor but officials expected the death toll to rise as reports arrived of people being buried under rubble, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Nepal’s Home Ministry reported at least 42 deaths but later lowered the toll to 37. It said at least 1,139 people had been injured in Nepal.
In neighbouring India, at least 16 people were confirmed dead after rooftops or walls collapsed on to them, according to India’s Home Ministry. Chinese media reported one death in Tibet.
In Nepal, at least three people were rescued in the capital, while another nine were pulled to safety in the district of Dolkha, the government said.
Rescue helicopters were sent to mountain districts where landslides and collapsed buildings may have buried people, the government said. Home Ministry official Laxmi Dhakal said the Sindhupalchowk and Dolkha districts were the worst hit.
Search parties fanned out to look for survivors in the wreckage of collapsed buildings in Sindhulpalchowk’s town of Chautara, which had become a hub for humanitarian aid after the magnitude-7.8 earthquake on April 25, Nepal’s worst-recorded quake since 1934.
Nepal was left reeling by the April 25 tremor. The impoverished country appealed for billions of pounds in aid from foreign nations, as well as medical experts to treat the wounded and helicopters to ferry food and temporary shelters to hundreds of thousands left homeless amid unseasonal rains.
