Dozens dead as new quake hits Nepal

Rescue workers stand beside buildings that collapsed in an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, May 12, 2015. A major earthquake has hit Nepal near the Chinese border between the capital of Kathmandu and Mount Everest less than three weeks after the country was devastated by a quake. (AP Photo/Ranup Shrestha)

A new earthquake and powerful aftershocks have killed dozens of people and brought fresh terror to a traumatised Nepal as buildings already damaged in a monster quake last month came tumbling down.

Weeks after the country’s deadliest quake in more than 80 years, terrified residents once again fled onto the streets on Tuesday as houses collapsed and landslides blocked roads, hampering the relief effort.

Authorities in Nepal said at least 48 people were killed and more than 1100 injured, while 17 people also died across the border in northern India.

The 7.3-magnitude quake struck at 12.35pm local time, some 76 kilometres east of Kathmandu, the US Geological Survey said, after a 7.8-magnitude quake on April 25 killed more than 8000 people.

Tuesday’s quake was felt as far away as New Delhi, and caused buildings to collapse in Tibet in neighbouring China, killing at least one person there.

A second tremor of 6.3-magnitude struck Nepal around half an hour later, followed by yet more aftershocks, according to the USGS.

Eight people died in Kathmandu Valley and two major buildings collapsed in the capital.

But Dolakha and Sindhupalchowk, two of districts worst affected by the original quake, bore the brunt of the damage. In Dolakha alone, 26 people were confirmed dead.

“Many houses have collapsed in Dolakha… there is a chance that the number of dead from the district will go up,” said Home Minister Bam Dev Gautam.

The Red Cross said it had received reports of large-scale casualties in the town of Chautara in Sindhupalchowk, where its Norwegian branch is running a field hospital.

“Hundreds of people are pouring in. They are treating dozens for injuries and they have performed more than a dozen surgeries,” said spokeswoman Nichola Jones.

An emergency tent hospital in Tatopani near the Chinese border run by the Canadian Red Cross had been damaged by a landslide, she said.

There have been several reports of landslides in the worst-hit areas, making the task of getting relief to remote communities in the mountainous country even more difficult.

Save the Children said the Gorkha region, near the epicentre of the April 25 quake, had also been hit by landslides and many key roads were blocked.

Nepalese television showed the parliament building swaying, forcing MPs to flee.

Regine Kopplow, a German aid worker who was in the Dolakha district headquarters of Charikot when the latest quake hit, saw huge dust clouds rise into the air as buildings collapsed.

“I saw a woman in the building opposite jump from the third floor who suffered injuries to her leg, elbow and hand,” said Kopplow, who works for Concern Worldwide.

The Nepalese government has acknowledged that it was overwhelmed by the scale of the April 25 disaster, which destroyed nearly 300,000 homes and left many more too dangerous to live in.

“At an hour of a natural disaster like this, we have to face it with courage and patience,” Nepal’s Prime Minister Sushil Koirala said after an emergency meeting of his cabinet on Tuesday.

Scientists said Tuesday’s quake was part of a chain reaction.

“Large earthquakes are often followed by other quakes, sometimes as large as the initial one,” said Carmen Solana, a volcanologist at Britain’s University of Portsmouth.

“This is because the movement produced by the first quake adds extra stress on other faults and destabilises them,” she told the London-based Science Media Centre.

Kathmandu’s airport, the main entry point for flights bringing in aid, was briefly closed after Tuesday’s quake.

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