Himalayas
Nepal: At least 157 people died in earthquake
People search for their belongings in the rubble. photo
© Sunil Sharma/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
A strong earthquake wakes people in their sleep in a particularly poor area of Nepal – and has devastating consequences. Even hours later, emergency services are still unable to reach all of the affected areas.
Simple houses in ruins, desperate people – and the number of victims continues to rise: in a severe earthquake in At least 157 people have died in Nepal. In addition, at least 170 people were injured, a police spokesman in the capital Kathmandu told the German Press Agency.
According to measurements by the National Earthquake Monitoring Center (NEMRC), the quake had a magnitude of 6.4 and occurred on Friday evening at 11:47 p.m. local time when many people were sleeping. The following day, footage on the local television station Kantipur TV showed people searching for their belongings in destroyed houses and pulling injured victims out of the rubble.
In some places, rescue work began shortly after the quake, but other places in the mountainous Himalayan country could not be reached even on Saturday, said administrative representative Harischandra Sharma from Jajarkot district, where the center of the quake was located. Some roads were blocked by landslides, and some helpers could only reach the remote places on foot anyway. The affected areas are among the poorest in the poor country in South Asia. Footage from Kantipur TV also showed how villagers helped themselves and those around them without protective equipment. They used spades and headlamps.
Balbir Bishwakarma, a local of Jajarkot who lost his house in the quake, told the TV channel that his close relatives were fortunate to have survived. But some of his friends died and he believes they might have survived if they had been rescued more quickly.
Steinmeier expresses his condolences
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed his condolences in a letter to Nepalese President Ram Chandra Paudel: “I would like to thank you and the citizens of Nepal, many of whom were already affected by the terrible earthquake in 2015, also on behalf of the German people , express my deepest condolences… Our hope is that many of the missing can be recovered unharmed.”
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal visited Jajarkot by helicopter on Saturday and met injured people at a local hospital, media reported. Some injured people should also be taken by air to hospitals – including the capital Kathmandu – for emergency treatment, as the affected areas do not have the appropriate infrastructure, it said.
Sete Giri, a village official in Jajarkot, said hundreds of houses had been damaged. Many residents spent Saturday night outdoors. “Many houses were traditionally built – made of stone and clay,” said Giri. “That could be the reason for the damage.” According to the village representative, many people who otherwise regularly work as migrant workers in the richer neighboring country of India are currently in their homeland for important Hindu holidays such as the upcoming Diwali festival of lights. The quake was also felt in northern India.
The earthquake caused the most deaths in Nepal since the massive quake in spring 2015, which killed around 9,000 people and left millions more homeless. At that time, the area around the capital Kathmandu was shaken. Numerous buildings collapsed, including UNESCO World Heritage sites. The Himalayan region, in which Nepal is located, is geologically extremely active. There the Indian continental plate pushes under the Eurasian plate. This leads to earthquakes, there have been several in the past few weeks.