Nepal hit by second earthquake

ASECOND powerful earthquake in less than three weeks spread panic in Nepal yesterday, bringing down buildings weakened by the first disaster and killing at least 66 people, including 17 in neighbouring India and one in Chinese Tibet.

Most of the reported fatalities were in villages and towns east of Kathmandu, which is only just beginning to pick up the pieces from the April 25 quake that left more than 8 000 dead.

The US military’s Pacific Command said a Marine Corps helicopter involved in disaster relief had gone missing, with six US Marines and two Nepalese soldiers aboard.

The new 7.3-magnitude quake was centred 76km east of the capital in a hilly area close to the border with Tibet, according to co-ordinates provided by the US Geological Survey, and unleashed landslides in Himalayan valleys near Mount Everest.

Villagers who watched their homes collapse said they only survived because they were already living in tents.

Aid workers reported serious damage to some villages in the worst-affected Charikot area, and said some people were still trapped under rubble. Witnesses said rocks and mud came crashing down remote hillsides lined with roads and small hamlets.

“We still don’t have a clear view of the scale of the problem,” said Dan Sermand, an emergency co-ordinator at medical NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres, which surveyed the area by air and saw multiple landslides.

The UN has raised only 13% of the $423 million (R5bn) it said was needed to help Nepal recover from last month’s quake, which measured 7.8 on the Richter Scale.

Relief workers said they were already suffering from a lack of material before the new quake.

“Why are internally displaced people sleeping on our office floor? Where are our tents? Where are our tarpaulins? Where are our hygiene kits?” said Brian Kelly of the International Organisation for Migration, at a large relief camp in the hilltop town of Chautara, hard-hit by both quakes.

A team of about a dozen volunteers searched the rubble for survivors in the town, the biggest in a district that suffered the worst casualties last month. Several people were believed to be trapped. “It’s better to search at night so it’s quiet,” said Rejoien Guru, a volunteer from Kathmandu.

He and others pointed flashlights into the destroyed buildings hit by the quakes.

“If anyone is in there, make a sound,” he called in Nepali.

In the town of Sangachowk, residents were outside receiving government food aid when the new quake struck. A family sat on the edge of the road where their house had just fallen down the hill.

“We watched it go down slowly, slowly,” said Ashok Parajuli, 30.

Politicians dashed for the exit of Nepal’s parliament building in Kathmandu, and office towers swayed as far away as New Delhi. The tremors could be felt in Bangladesh and were followed by a series of powerful aftershocks. – Reuters

I