KATHMANDU // A powerful earthquake struck Nepal on Saturday, killing at least 1,180 people across four countries as the shaking earth collapsed houses, levelled centuries-old temples and triggered avalanches on Mt Everest.
It was the worst tremor to hit the poor South Asian nation in over 80 years.
At least 1,130 people were confirmed dead across Nepal, according to the police. Another 34 were killed in India, 12 in Tibet and two in Bangladesh. Two Chinese citizens died in the Nepal-China border. The death toll is almost certain to rise.
The UAE’s President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed sent a message of condolences to the president of Nepal and wished quick recovery to the injured.
Netra Tandan, a counsellor at the Nepalese embassy in Abu Dhabi, said its citizens in the UAE were most likely to contact their families in Kathmandu or Pokhara.
Meanwhile, Nepalese residents in the UAE can contact the embassy for consular assistance.
It was a few minutes before noon when the quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 7.8, began to rumble across the densely populated Kathmandu Valley, rippling through the capital Kathmandu and spreading in all directions.
Shrish Vaidya, a businessman, was with his family in his two-story house on the outskirts of Kathmandu, when the quake struck.
“It is hard to describe. The house was shaking like crazy. We ran out and it seemed like the road was heaving up and down,” he said. “I don’t remember anything like this before. Even my parents can’t remember anything this bad.”
A magnitude-6.6 aftershock hit about an hour later, and at least 16 aftershocks continued to jolt the region for hours. Residents ran out of homes and buildings in panic. Walls tumbled, trees swayed, power lines came crashing down and large cracks opened up on streets and walls. And clouds of dust began to swirl all around.
“Our village has been almost wiped out. Most of the houses are either buried by landslide or damaged by shaking,” said Vim Tamang, a resident of Manglung village near the epicentre. He said half of the village folks are either missing or dead. “All the villagers have gathered in the open area. We don’t know what to do. We are feeling helpless,” he said.
Within hours of the quake, hospitals began to fill up with hundreds of injured people. With organised relief and rescue largely absent, many of the injured were brought to hospitals by friends and relatives in motorised rickshaws, flatbed lorries and cars. It was also residents themselves who used bare hands, crowbars and other tools to dig through rubble and rescue survivors.
In Kathmandu, dozens of people gathered in the car park of Norvic International Hospital, where thin mattresses were spread on the ground for patients rushed outside, some wearing hospital pyjamas.
Doctors and nurses hooked up some patients to intravenous drips in the car park, or gave people oxygen.
As night fell, thousands of scared residents continued to camp out in parks and compounds, too scared to return to their homes. Meteorologists forecast rain and thunderstorms for Saturday night and Sunday.
Prime minister Sushil Koirala, who was attending a summit in Jakarta, tried to rush back home but made it as far as Bangkok where his connecting flight to Kathmandu was cancelled because the capital’s international airport was shut down.
While the extent of the damage and the scale of the disaster are yet to be ascertained, the quake will likely put a huge strain on the resources of this poor country. The economy of Nepal, a nation of 27.8 million people, is heavily reliant on tourism.
The US. Geological Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 7.8. It said the quake hit at 11:56am local time at Lamjung, about 80 kilometres north-west of Kathmandu. Its depth was only 11 kilometres, the largest shallow quake since the 8.2 temblor off the coast of Chile on April 1, 2014.
The shallower the quake the more destructive power it carries.
A major factor in the damage was that many of the buildings were not built to be quake-proof. An earthquake this size in Tokyo or Los Angeles, which have building codes for quake resistance, would not be nearly as devastating.
The Kathmandu Valley is densely populated with nearly 2.5 million people, and the quality of buildings is often poor.
Nepal suffered its worst recorded earthquake in 1934, which measured 8.0 and all but destroyed the cities of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan.
The sustained quake also was felt in India’s capital of New Delhi and several other Indian cities.
India’s prime minister Narendra Modi called a meeting of top government officials to review the damage and disaster preparedness in parts of India that felt strong tremors. The Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Sikkim, which share a border with Nepal, have reported building damage. There have also been reports of damage in the northeastern state of Assam.
Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif offered “all possible help” that Nepal may need.
* Associated Press, The National staff