(Kathmandu) At least 119 people were killed in an earthquake that shook a remote region of western Nepal, local officials contacted by AFP reported on Saturday morning.
The 5.6 magnitude earthquake was measured at a depth of 18 km according to the American Geological Survey USGS. It hit the far western Himalayan country late Friday evening. Its epicenter was located 42 km south of Jumla, not far from the border with Tibet.
“The toll stands at 119 dead and at least 100 injured,” Gopal Chandra Bhattarai, police spokesperson for Karnali province, where at least two districts suffered heavy damage, told AFP.
“The isolation of the districts makes it difficult to transmit information,” he added.
Jajarkot and Rukum West districts, south of the epicenter, have so far been worst hit in the border province of Karnali.
In Jajarkot, the area hospital was stormed by residents transporting injured people there.
Videos and photos posted on social media show residents digging through rubble in the dark to extract survivors from collapsed buildings.
It shows destroyed or damaged mud houses and survivors outside to protect themselves from possible further collapses, while emergency vehicle sirens blare.
Moderate tremors were felt as far away as New Delhi, the capital of India located nearly 500 km from the epicenter.
Nepalese security forces have been widely deployed to quake-hit areas to assist in relief operations, Bhattarai said.
“Some roads are blocked due to the damage, but we are trying to reach the area through other routes,” he added.
On a major geological fault
Earthquakes are common in Nepal, which lies on a major geological fault where the Indian tectonic plate pushes into the Eurasian plate, forming the Himalayan range.
The Kathmandu government deployed security forces to assist in the relief efforts.
“We have information indicating human and material damage in two districts due to the earthquake” where “security forces were mobilized for relief operations,” declared Nararyan Prasad Bhattarai, spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense. ‘Interior.
The human toll is not confirmed at this stage, he added.
Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal expressed “deep sadness for the human and physical damage caused by the earthquake.”
The tremor was followed several hours later by aftershocks of magnitude 4 in the same area, according to the USGS.
Nearly 9,000 people died in 2015 when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, destroying more than half a million homes and 8,000 schools.
Hundreds of monuments and royal palaces – including sites in the Kathmandu Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and attracting tourists from all over the world – had suffered irreversible damage, striking a blow to Nepalese tourism.
In November 2022, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake killed six people in the Doti district, near Jajarkot struck on Friday evening.