Authorities in a rural area of northwest Nepal issued a warning that the death toll could grow after an earthquake struck overnight on Friday, toppling many structures and killing at least 157 people, according to police.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported that the earthquake had a magnitude of 5.6 and that it had occurred in the Karnali province, around 42 kilometers (or 26 miles) from Jumla, Nepal. The earthquake occurred at a relatively shallow depth of 18 kilometers, and the capital city of India, New Delhi, was affected.
Right now, our main priority is doing search and rescue operations, Nepal police spokesperson Kuber Kadayat told CNN on Saturday. We therefore lack a precise assessment of the number of homes that have collapsed and been destroyed, along with other infrastructure. An estimated 90% of the homes in certain villages have collapsed.Kadayat reports that 170 people have been injured and 157 confirmed deaths as of this writing, making Friday’s earthquake the deadliest since 2015.Near the epicenter of the earthquake, in the Jajarkot district, 105 confirmed deaths and 55 injuries were reported. Kadayat said that 52 people died and 85 were injured in the neighboring Rukum West area.
Reuters footage saw several houses in Jajarkot damaged to shattered piles of bricks and wood.In Nepal, which is situated where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates collide to form the imposing Himalayan mountain range, earthquakes are frequent.
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck in 2015 claimed the lives of at least 9,000 people, destroyed one million homes and buildings throughout large portions of the country, and resulted in $6 billion in damages.Because they had not been able to make contact in the steep area around the epicenter, some 500 kilometers (300 miles) west of the capital Kathmandu, where tremors were also felt, officials told Reuters they feared the number of casualties from Friday’s earthquake might increase.”It’s possible that there will be hundreds of injuries and more fatalities,” Jajarkot district officer Harish Chandra Sharma told Reuters over the phone.
Numerous homes have fallen, and numerous others have cracks in them. As aftershocks came, thousands of inhabitants were too terrified to enter the fractured houses, so they spent the entire night in the chilly, open grounds, Sharma continued.The 190,000 people living in the Jajarkot district live in communities strewn among isolated hills. At the major hospital in Jajarkot, survivors are gathering.