Magnitude 6.8 quake kills 5 in Nepal, 10 in India

KATHMANDU, Sept 18: Five persons were killed and another 44 injured as a strong tremor rocked eastern and central Nepal on Sunday sending panic across the country.

Three persons were killed when the compound wall of the British Embassy fell over them at Kapurdhara Marga of Lainchour while two others lost their lives when a wall of a house collapsed in Dharan-13, Furse due to the earthquake that measured 6.8 on the Richter scale and had its epicenter on the Taplejung-Sikkim (India) border.[break]

Sajan Shrestha, 36, and his eight-year-old daughter Anisha of Ghurmichour-6 Gorkha, residing in Samakhusi Town Planning and Bir Bahadur Majhi, 19, were crushed to death by the British Embassy wall.

Sajan, a security guard with DANIDA, and his daughter were riding a scooter (Ba 9 pa 2646) while Majhi was walking on the sidewalk when embassy wall collapsed.

“I saw the wall fall and ran to rescue them. Their head was buried under the rubble and I, with help from passers-by, pulled them out and rushed them to Manmohan Memorial Hospital,” Gyanendra Ghimire, a Nepal Army soldier, told Republica. Majhi was also later rushed to the hospital and all three were declared dead on arrival.

A car was also crushed by the wall but the driver Binay Shrestha got out of the crushed car and went to the the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital for treatment. He has sustained serious leg injuries while one Januka of Dhapasi injured her waist while jumping off the first floor of her house.

Similarly, Santosh Pariyar, 20, of Katunje, Okhaldhunga and his seven-year-old nephew Bimal Pariyar died on the spot when an old cottage they had been renting was crushed by the wall of the landlord’s house in Dharan-13. Bimal’s father is a tailor with the school department of Kalibaksha Battalion of Nepal Army.

The Natural Disaster Management Division of the Home Ministry said a total of 44 persons were injured across the country, including 32 in Kathmandu.

Binay Shrestha has sustained “Altogether 58 houses were destroyed in the country with 36 in the eastern region, 10 in Kathmandu and 12 in the rest of central region,” said chief of the Natural Disaster Disaster Management Division Shankar Koirala.

The National Seismological Center of the Department of Mines and Geology said the earthquake started at 6:25 in the evening and the tremor was felt in the eastern and central part of the country.

“It was a moderate quake and we don’t measure the duration of such quakes. We only measure the duration of mega (great) quakes with magnitude of eight on the Richter scale,” said Technical Officer at the National Seismological Center Umesh Prasad Gautam.

The biggest recorded earthquake in Nepal was of 8.3 Richter scale with epicenter in Bhojpur in 1934, according to Gautam. The second biggest was of 6.5 on August 21, 1988 and had its epicenter in Udayapur district.

“This is bigger than the one in 1988 but since the epicenter is on the border we can’t call it the second biggest to hit Nepal till date,” Gautam reasoned.

Meanwhile, buildings were damaged in Sankhuwasabha, Taplejung, Lamjung, Ramechhap, Lamjung, Syangja districts according to our correspondents.

In Sankhuwasabha, 16 buildings, including district administration office, district development committee and district police office have been damaged. Policeman Gangaram Rai sustained injuries.

In Taplejung, two people were injured. In Kavre, three houses collapsed. District hospital in Solukhumbu was damaged while many houses developed cracks.

The Bikichholing monastery, which is believed to be one of the oldest in the country, and a community building at Olangchungola in Taplejung also sustained damages.

Also a building at Dadhuwa VDC in Ramechhap district collapsed.

Ten killed in India

At least ten people were killed in India -- five in Sikkim, three in West Bengal and two in Bihar in Sunday’s earthquake, according to Press Trust of India.

Five people in Sikkim state were killed and more than 50 were injured, according to the state’s top official, Chief Secretary Karma Gyatso.

The full extent of damage was not immediately known because the region is sparsely populated with many people living in remote areas now cut off by mudslides triggered by the quake, state police Chief Jasbir Singh said.

TV stations reported that buildings buckled, sidewalks cracked and two major roads collapsed in Gangtok, 68 kilometers southeast of the quake’s epicenter. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police said two of its buildings had collapsed in Gangtok.

Small army columns fanned out across the city of some 50,000 overnight to search for anyone pinned under fallen debris.

“We have sounded a high alert. Police are on the streets in Gangtok and other major towns,” he said.

Panic in parliament

Bemused lawmakers at the parliament meeting on Sunday evening suddenly stood up from their chairs and ran helter-skelter as the earthquake measuring 6.8 on Richter scale shook the meeting hall. While some hid under the chairs, others rushed out of the building into the open.

Unaware of the quake, Speaker Subas Nembang had requested the lawmakers to sit down. Nembang came to know about the quake only later and postponed the meeting for 15 minutes.

Within minutes the lawmakers were outside the meeting hall heaving a sigh of relief and with their own stories to tell.

Threat of immediate big quake reduced by small aftershocks

The National Seismological Center said the risk of an immediate big quake has been greatly reduced by 32 subsequent small aftershocks (till 10 pm) and urged the common people to not panic.

“There is always a risk of a big quake if there are no aftershocks but we recorded 32 aftershocks including two of 4.8 magnitude on Richter scale and it has greatly reduced the threat of a bigger quake,” Technical Officer at the center Umesh Prasad Gautam said.

“The stress is released due to these small aftershocks and there is a lesser chance of an immediate big quake,” Gautam explained. Gautam, therefore, urged the people not to panic fearing a big quake but asked them to remain alert and prepared as always.

Barrage of calls choke telephone services

Panic stricken residents of Kathmandu had a hard time getting in touch with their near and dear ones through phone after the tremor arising from an earthquake measuring 6.8 in Richter scale. People had to dial several times over to get through their network to connect to the desired number.

"For 15-20 minutes it was difficult for our system to sustain the pressure," said Surendra Thike, spokesperson of state-owned Nepal Telecom. Not just Nepal Telecom, the services of other telephone operators like Ncell, UTL too became virtually non-functional immediately after the earthquake.

According to a source at Nepal Telecom, 300 calls can be made from a base transceiver station (BTS) of mobile but a BTS was overwhelmed by as many as 5,000 calls at a time. Consequently, the telephone services experienced traffic congestion after the earthquake, said the source. CDMA services seemed to have more trouble than the GSM ones.

Cabinet orders relief

Meanwhile, a cabinet meeting held at eight in the evening directed the administration to collect details of losses and distribute relief materials. The meeting also instructed the administration to remain prepared with relief and rescue materials in view of possible immediate big quakes.