Rescue workers in Nepal yesterday began digging through the rubble of collapsed houses with their bare hands, searching for survivors after the country’s worst earthquake in eight years killed 157 people and shook buildings as far away as New Delhi.
The magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck the Jajarkot District of Karnali Province in the west of the Himalayan nation at 11:47pm on Friday, the Nepalese National Earthquake Monitoring and Seismological Research Center said.
The German Research Centre for Geosciences measured it at 5.7 and the US Geological Survey at 5.6.
Photo: AFP
Officials fear the death toll could rise as first responders had reached the hilly area near the epicenter, about 500km west of the capital, Kathmandu, only early yesterday and began searching for survivors.
“The number of injured could be in the hundreds and the deaths could go up as well,” Jajarkot District official Harish Chandra Sharma said by telephone.
Although the quake’s magnitude was not severe, the damage and the death toll are high due to the poor quality of construction in the area and because it struck while people slept, officials said.
Rescue work was expected to be slow as emergency teams must first clear roads blocked by landslides in many places, they said, adding that helicopters and small planes have been asked to be ready to join the effort.
The quake is the deadliest since 2015 when about 9,000 people were killed in two earthquakes. Whole towns, centuries-old temples and other historic sites were reduced to rubble then, with more than 1 million houses destroyed, at a cost to the economy of US$6 billion.
Yesterday’s death toll included 105 people killed in Jajarkot and 52 in neighboring Rukum West District, Nepalese Ministry of Home Affairs Under-secretary for Disaster Preparedness and Response Rama Acharya said.
The epicenter was in the village of Ramidanda. The national seismological center said that 175 aftershocks were recorded in Jajarkot and six of them were of magnitude 4 or greater.
Three towns and three villages were known to be affected in Jajarkot, which has a population of 190,000 with villages scattered in remote hills, authorities said.
At least 85 people were injured in Rukum West and 55 in Jajarkot, an official in the prime minister’s office said.
“Many houses have collapsed, many others have developed cracks. Thousands of residents spent the entire night in cold, open grounds because they were too scared to go into the cracked houses as aftershocks struck,” Sharma said. “I have myself not been able to go in.”
Local TV channels showed rescuers digging through the rubble with their bare hands looking for survivors in the debris of collapsed houses. Injured people were shown being carried to a rescue helicopter to move them to hospitals.
Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal flew to the area early yesterday with a 16-member army medical team to oversee search, rescue and relief, his office said.
His office appealed to political parties, social workers and the public to donate funds to help arrange food, water, clothes and tents for the survivors.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS