Dozens killed as fresh magnitude-7.3 earthquake shatters Nepal

The earthquake epicentre was 83 kilometres east of Kathmandu, at a depth of 18.5km, the US Geological Survey reported.

Kathmandu residents evacuate onto a street minutes after an earthquake on May 12, 2015. Athit Perawongmetha / Reuters

KATHMANDU // A major earthquake hit a remote region of Nepal on Tuesday, killing at least 36 people, triggering landslides and toppling buildings less than three weeks after the country was shattered by its worst earthquake in decades.

Information was slow to reach the capital, Kathmandu, but officials and aid workers said they expected the death toll to almost certainly rise following the magnitude-7.3 quake.

Within a few hours, the government confirmed that 36 people were killed and at least 981 injured, home ministry official Laxmi Dhakal said.

Rescue helicopters were sent to mountainous districts north-east of Kathmandu, where landslides and collapsed buildings may have left people buried, the government said.

Mr Dhakal said the Sindhupalchowk and Dolakha districts were the hardest hit.

Rescuers fanned out to search for survivors in Sindhulpalchowk’s town of Chautara, where several buildings collapsed. Chautara has become a hub for humanitarian aid after the April 25 earthquake killed more than 8,150 people and injured more than 17,860 as it flattened mountain villages and destroyed buildings.

It was Nepal’s worst recorded earthquake since 1934.

Tuesday’s earthquake was deeper, however, coming from a depth of 18.5 kilometres against the earlier one at 15km. Shallow earthquakes tend to cause more damage.

The latest earthquake was followed closely by at least six strong aftershocks, according to the US Geological Survey.

The international airport in Kathmandu, which has become a transport hub for international aid, was closed briefly, while traffic snarled in the streets of the capital.

Early reports indicated at least two buildings had collapsed in Kathmandu, though one has been unoccupied since April 25. Experts say the previous earthquake caused extensive structural damage even in buildings that did not topple, and that many could be in danger of future collapse.

“The shaking seemed to go on and on,” Rose Foley, a Unicef official based in Kathmandu, said. “It felt like being on a boat in rough seas.”

Aid agencies were struggling to get reports from outside of the capital.

“We’re thinking about children across the country ... who are already suffering. This could make them even more vulnerable,” Ms Foley said.

Residents of the small town of Namche Bazaar, about 50km from the epicentre and a well-known spot for high-altitude trekkers, said a couple of buildings damaged in the earlier earthquake collapsed on Tuesday. However, there were no reports of deaths or injuries in the town.

Meanwhile, new landslides blocked mountain roads in the district of Gorkha, one of the hardest hit areas on April 25.

“People are terribly scared. Everyone ran out in the streets because they are afraid of being inside the houses,” Norwegian Red Cross secretary-general Asne Havnelid told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

At Kathmandu’s Norvic Hospital, patients and doctors rushed to the car park.

“I thought I was going to die this time,” said Sulav Singh, who rushed with his daughter into a street in the suburban neighbourhood of Thapathali. “Things were just getting back to normal, and we get this one.”

Nepalese have been terrified by dozens of aftershocks that followed the April quake.

Nepal has appealed for billions of dollars in aid from foreign nations, as well as medical experts to treat the wounded and helicopters to ferry food and temporary shelters to hundreds of thousands left homeless amid unseasonal rains.

Paul Dillon, a spokesman with the International Organisation for Migration, said he saw a man in Kathmandu who had apparently run from the shower with shampoo covering his head. “He was sitting on the ground, crying,” Mr Dillon said.

Across the Nepalese border in Tibet’s Jilong and Zhangmu regions, the earth shook strongly. Tremors were also felt slightly in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.

"Rocks fell from the mountains," Jilong county government vice chief Wang Wenxiang said, according to China News Service. "There might be some houses collapsed or damaged. We are now checking on the condition of the people."

* Associated Press