bAt least 69 people were killed and dozens injured in an earthquake in Nepal on Friday evening. “Rescue and search teams have to clear roads blocked by landslides caused by the earthquake to reach the affected areas,” said Namaraj Bhattarai, a police official in one of the affected areas.
According to Nepal’s National Seismological Center, the quake struck in Jajarkot district, a hilly area with a population of 190,000, in Karnali province. Jajarkot is about 500 kilometers west of the capital Kathmandu. Nepal’s National Seismological Center said the quake had a magnitude of 6.4, but the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) later downgraded the magnitude to 5.7 and the US Geological Survey (USGS) put the magnitude at 5.6 . According to the USGS, the quake occurred at a depth of 18 kilometers below the Earth’s surface. Tremors were felt as far away as the Indian capital New Delhi, which is almost 500 kilometers from the epicenter of the quake.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal expressed his “deep sadness” at the “human and material damage” caused by the earthquake on the online service X, formerly Twitter.
In 2015, around 9,000 people were killed in two earthquakes in Nepal. Entire cities, centuries-old temples and other historic sites were reduced to rubble, more than a million homes were destroyed and the economy was damaged by $6 billion.
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