POWERFUL EARTHQUAKE KILLS HUNDREDS IN NEPAL
Annie Gowen and Rama Lakshmi
Casualties reports varied as rescuers worked frantically to free victims from the rubble. Hundreds of injured people filled hospitals both the capital of Kathmandu and around the quake’s epicenter of Lamjung, about 40 miles from the capital. According to Nepal’s national television, the death toll has reached over 750, with nearly 242 killed in capital.
India’s Home Affairs Ministry said 18 people were confirmed dead in states in Northern India — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal — with casualties also reported in China’s autonomous region of Tibet and Bangladesh. The shocks from the violent tremblor — which struck shortly before noon — was felt throughout South Asia, as far away as Dhaka and Lahore.
Several buildings collapsed in the historic heart of Kathmandu in the seconds following the quake, including Dharahara Tower, the iconic landmark built in 1832 that was an UNESCO heritage site. “There’s nothing left,” one despairing survivor from that neighborhood told CNN-IBN, the Indian news channel.
In Kathmandu, residents said they were staying outside their homes, afraid to go inside, and still feeling the aftershocks hours after the initial quake, which was originally reported as 7.9 magnitude. More than a dozen aftershocks were recorded, some at magnitude 5.5 or greater. Dozens of patients began flooding the city’s hospitals from neighboring areas, and damaged roads were clogged with traffic, hindering relief efforts.
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