Nov. 4, Kathmandu (IANS): As the rescue effort continues, the number of fatalities from a powerful 6.4-magnitude earthquake in Nepal has increased to 128 people, according to government officials on Saturday.
140 more people were wounded in the shallow earthquake that struck the districts of Jajarkot and Rukum West at 11:47 p.m. on Friday, according to Nepal Police spokesperson Kuber Kadayat, who spoke to the Xinhua news agency.
According to him, certain areas are hard for the rescue crews to get to since the earthquake destroyed bridges and closed highways with landslides.
The earthquake occurred between 10 and 15 kilometers deep, and by Saturday morning, four more aftershocks larger than magnitude 4.0 had been detected, according to Lok Bijay Adhikari of Nepal’s National Earthquake Monitoring and Research Centre.
“The seismic activity persists,” he remarked.
The rescue and medical care of those injured in the earthquake are the top priorities for the Nepali government.
“The primary priority is to rescue and treat the injured,” Home Ministry spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai told Xinhua.
Along with medical personnel, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal visited the impacted region on Saturday morning. He also announced that helicopters were being sent in for the rescue effort.
“As the priority is on rescue efforts, we have not yet collected information regarding damaged houses and other infrastructure,” said Bhattarai.
“At this time, no reports of casualties from other districts have surfaced.”
Three earthquakes larger than magnitude 4.0 struck the central Nepalese region of Dhading in October; one of them had a magnitude of 6.1.
In the Himalayan nation, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 in 2015 left over 9,000 people dead and more than half a million houses damaged.
