Kathmandu: In a terrifying replay of the April 25 earthquake that battered Nepal, a fresh 7.4 quake jolted the Himalayan country yesterday killing 42 people and sending panic-stricken residents running out of their houses.
Streets swarmed with people within seconds after the first tremors were felt at around 12.45pm (local time). People scurried out in hundreds, screaming in horror. Dogs barking incessantly and within a few minutes, more than a dozen helicopters were soaring the skies of Kathmandu.
“I am terrified. I can’t believe this is happening,” Australian visitor Dianna Coburn, 59, told Gulf News.
“First there was a jolt. Then I felt I was being swayed from side to side. I immediately ran out to the street, Uttam Kapri, who runs Mi Casa hotel in Thamel, Kathmandu,said.
The US Geological Survey said the quake had a magnitude of 7.4 and the epicentre is believed to be 18 kilometres southeast of Kodari in Nepal. Last month’s quake, one of the worst in Nepal’s history in the last 80 years, claimed more than 8000 lives, and destroyed thousands of houses.
According to Home Ministry of Nepal, hundreds of houses have collapsed in the fresh quake, and many have developed fresh cracks.
The Red Cross said it had received reports of large-scale casualties in the town of Chautara in Sindhupalchowk, where its Norwegian branch is running a field hospital, AFP reported.
“Hundreds of people are pouring in. They are treating dozens for injuries and they have performed more than a dozen surgeries,” said spokeswoman Nichola Jones.
An emergency tent hospital in Tatopani near the Chinese border run by the Canadian Red Cross had been damaged by a landslide, she said.
There have been several reports of landslides in the worst-hit areas, making the task of getting relief to remote communities in the mountainous country even more difficult.
Save the Children said the Gorkha region, near the epicentre of the April 25 quake, had also been hit by landslides and many key roads were blocked.
The charity said two major buildings had collapsed in Kathmandu, while many more multi-storey buildings were showing large fissures.
- The writer is senior reporter at Xpress, a sister publication of Gulf News
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