KATHMANDU: On Friday, November 3, a powerful earthquake struck the eastern region of Jajarkot, killing at least 69 people and injuring dozens more. According to witnesses, the area’s homes collapsed and shook buildings as far as New Delhi, India.
The German Research Centre for Geosciences( GFZ ) later downgraded the magnitude to 5.7, and the United States Geological Survey pegged it as a magnitude 5.6. The National Seismological Centre of Nepal reported the earthquake as magnitude 6. 4.
The location near the epicentre in Jajarkot, a mountainous district with 190,000 residents and villages dispersed in remote hills, had not been able to be reached, according to local officials.
At least 34 people have died in Jajarkot’s area, according to local established Harish Chandra Sharma, and at least 35 deaths have been reported in the neighboring Rukum West area.
To get to the affected areas, recovery and search teams must clear roads blocked by dried landslides caused by the earthquake, according to Bhattarai.
Authorities have not yet reached Ramidanda, where the centre is located.
In a post on social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal expressed his profound grief over the loss of life and property in the earthquake and ordered security companies to begin immediate rescue and relief activities.
Suresh Sunar, a city official in Jajarkot, called Reuters on the phone to say that at least 20 people had to be rushed to the hospital with injuries.
” I am by myself out in the empty.” We are gathering knowledge, but it is challenging to obtain information from far-off places because of the cold and darkness, he told Reuters.
According to Nepal’s National Seismological Centre, the earthquake struck the Jajarkot city of Karnali state at 11.47 p.m. local period. Roughly 500 kilometers separate Jajarkot from Kathmandu, the nation’s capital.
Local media film revealed multi-story brick homes with crumbling walls and large pieces of furniture strewn about.
People claimed that tremors could be felt in nearby neighborhoods and as far ahead as Kathmandu.
” Properties are falling apart.” Folks hastened from their residences. I am outside among the terrified locals. Santosh Rokka, a police official, told Reuters over the phone that” we are trying to get information of damages.”
According to Reuters witnesses, the earthquake shook houses as far as New Delhi, which is about 600 miles away. People were seen running into the streets in movies on X as some houses were evacuated.
About 9, 000 people were killed in two tremors in Nepal in 2015. At a cost to the US economy of$ 6 billion, entire towns, centuries-old churches, and other historical places were reduced to ruins, along with more than one million homes.