KATMANDU: A powerful earthquake struck Nepal Saturday, killing at least 718 people across a swath of four countries as the violently shaking earth collapsed houses, leveled 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 688 people were confirmed dead in Nepal, according to the police. Another 20 were killed in India, six in Tibet and two in Bangladesh. Two Chinese citizens died at the Nepal-China border. Given the scale of the destruction, the death toll is almost certain to rise, said Home Ministry official Laxmi Dhakal.
It was a few minutes before noon when the quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 7.8, began to rumble across the densely populated Katmandu Valley, rippling through the capital Katmandu and spreading in all directions — north toward the Himalayas and Tibet, south to the Indo-Gangetic plains, east toward the Brahmaputra delta of Bangladesh and west toward the historical city of Lahore in Pakistan.
A magnitude-6.6 aftershock hit about an hour later, and smaller aftershocks continued to jolt the region for hours. Residents ran out of homes and buildings in panic. Walls tumbled, large cracks opened up on streets and walls. Towers collapsed and clouds of dust began to swirl all around.
Within hours, hospitals began to fill up with dozens of injured people. Many came to the main hospital in central Katmandu. Among them was Pushpa Das, a laborer, ran from the house when the first quake struck but could not escape a collapsing wall that injured his arm.
“It was very scary. The earth was moving ... I am waiting for treatment but the (hospital) staff is overwhelmed,” he said, gingerly holding his right arm with his left hand. As he spoke dozens of more people showed up with injuries, mostly from falling bricks.
Following the quake, Katmandu’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 best known for Everest, the highest mountain in the world, and its rich Hindu culture. The economy of Nepal, a nation of 27.8 million people, is heavily dependent on tourism, principally trekking and Himalayan mountain climbing.
A senior mountaineering guide, Ang Tshering, said an avalanche swept the face of Mt. Everest after the earthquake, and government officials said at least 30 people were injured.
Tshering of the Nepal Mountaineering Association said the avalanche occurred between the Khumbu Icefall, a rugged area of collapsed ice and snow, and the base camp where most climbing expeditions have their main camps.
Carsten Lillelund Pedersen, a Dane who is climbing the Everest with a Belgian climber Jelle Veyt, said on his Facebook page that they were at Khumbu Icefall , a rugged area of collapsed ice and snow close to base camp at altitude 5,000 meters (16,500 feet) when the earthquake hit.
He wrote on his Facebook that they have started to receive the injured, including one person with the most severe injuries who sustained many fractures.
“He was blown away by the avalanche and broke both legs. For the camps closer to where the avalanche hit, our Sherpas believe that a lot of people may have been buried in their tents,” he wrote in English.
“There is now a steady flow of people fleeing basecamp in hope of more security further down the mountain“
The quake’s epicenter was 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Katmandu, and it had a depth of only 11 kilometers (7 miles), which is considered shallow in geological terms. The shallower the quake the more destructive power it carries, and witnesses said the trembling and swaying of the earth went on for several minutes..
Several buildings collapsed in the center of the capital, the ancient Old Katmandu, including centuries-old temples and towers, said resident Prachanda Sual.
Among them was the nine-story Dharahara Tower, one of Katmandu’s landmarks built by Nepal’s royal rulers as a watchtower in the 1800s and a UNESCO-recognized historical monument. It was reduced to rubble and there were reports of people trapped underneath.
Hundreds of people buy tickets on weekends to go up to the viewing platform on the eighth story.
Video footage showed people digging through the rubble of the bricks form the collapsed tower, looking for survivors.
The Katmandu Valley is densely populated with nearly 2.5 million people, and the quality of buildings is often poor.
In Katmandu, dozens of people were gathered in the parking lot of Norvic International Hospital, where thin mattresses were spread on the ground for patients rushed outside, some wearing hospital pajamas. A woman with a bandage on her head sat in a set of chairs pulled from the hospital waiting room.
Doctors and nurses hooked up some patients to IV drops in the parking lot, or were giving people oxygen.
The US Geological Survey revised the magnitude from 7.5 to 7.9 but then lowered it to 7.8. It said the quake hit at 11:56 a.m. local time (0611 GMT) at Lamjung. It was the largest shallow quake since the 8.2 temblor off the coast of Chile on April 1, 2014.
The quake — with the same magnitude as the one that hit San Francisco in 1906 — was about 16 times more powerful than the 7.0 quake that devastated Haiti in 2010.
A magnitude 7 quake is capable of widespread and heavy damage while an 8 magnitude quake can cause tremendous damage.
A Swedish woman, Jenny Adhikari, who lives in Nepal, told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that she was riding a bus in the town of Melamchi when the earth began to move.
“A huge stone crashed only about 20 meters (yards) from the bus,” she was quoted as saying. “All the houses around me have tumbled down. I think there are lot of people who have died,” she told the newspaper by telephone. Melamchi is about 45 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Katmandu.
Residents reported seeing trails of destruction -collapsed walls, broken windows and fallen telephone poles — as they drove through the capital, along with streets filled with terrified people.
But scattered reports also indicated that most buildings in the capital did not collapse.
“It’s too early to make any assessment but the damage isn’t as bad as it could have been,” said Liz Satow, the Nepal director for the aid group World Vision. She said she drove from Katmandu to the nearby town of Lalitpur and said that while there was considerable damage, most buildings were still intact.
Nepal suffered its worst recorded earthquake in 1934, which measured 8.0 and all but destroyed the cities of Katmandu, 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 Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif offered “all possible help” that Nepal may need.
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Naqvi reported from New Delhi. Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen and Seth Borenstein in Washington DC contributed to this report.
Nepal quake: Hundreds dead, history crumbled, Everest shaken
Nepal quake: Hundreds dead, history crumbled, Everest shaken
DHL cargo plane crashes into a house in Lithuania, killing at least 1
- The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a “DHL cargo plane
VILNIUS: A DHL cargo plane crashed into a house Monday morning near the Lithuanian capital, killing at least one person.
Lithuanian’s public broadcaster LRT, quoting an emergency official, said two people had been taken to the hospital after the crash, and one was later pronounced dead. LRT said the aircraft smashed into a two-story home near the airport.
The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a “DHL cargo plane flying from Leipzig, Germany, to Vilnius Airport.”
It posted on the social platform X that city services including a fire truck were on site.
DHL Group, headquartered in Bonn, Germany, did not immediately return a call for comment.
The DHL aircraft was operated by Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor. The carrier could not be immediately reached.
The Boeing 737 was 31 years old, which is considered by experts to be an older airframe, though that’s not unusual for cargo flights.
UN chief slams land mine threat days after US decision to supply Ukraine
- The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines ‘very important’ to halting Russian attacks
SIEM REAP, Cambodia: The UN Secretary-General on Monday slammed the “renewed threat” of anti-personnel land mines, days after the United States said it would supply the weapons to Ukrainian forces battling Russia’s invasion.
In remarks sent to a conference in Cambodia to review progress on the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, UN chief Antonio Guterres hailed the work of clearing and destroying land mines across the world.
“But the threat remains. This includes the renewed use of anti-personnel mines by some of the Parties to the Convention, as well as some Parties falling behind in their commitments to destroy these weapons,” he said in the statement.
He called on the 164 signatories — which include Ukraine but not Russia or the United States — to “meet their obligations and ensure compliance to the Convention.”
Guterres’ remarks were delivered by UN Under-Secretary General Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana.
AFP has contacted her office and a spokesman for Guterres to ask if the remarks were directed specifically at Ukraine.
The Ukrainian team at the conference did not respond to AFP questions about the US land mine supplies.
Washington’s announcement last week that it would send anti-personnel land mines to Kyiv was immediately criticized by human rights campaigners.
The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines “very important” to halting Russian attacks.
The conference is being held in Cambodia, which was left one of the most heavily bombed and mined countries in the world after three decades of civil war from the 1960s.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet told the conference his country still needs to clear over 1,600 square kilometers (618 square miles) of contaminated land that is affecting the lives of more than one million people.
Around 20,000 people have been killed in Cambodia by land mines and unexploded ordnance since 1979, and twice as many have been injured.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said on Wednesday that at least 5,757 people had been casualties of land mines and explosive remnants of war across the world last year, 1,983 of whom were killed.
Civilians made up 84 percent of all recorded casualties, it said.
Philippines’ Marcos says threat of assassination ‘troubling’
- Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols
MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said on Monday he will not take lightly “troubling” threats against him, just days after his estranged vice president said she had asked someone to assassinate the president if she herself was killed.
In a video message during which he did not name Vice President Sara Duterte, his former running mate, Marcos said “such criminal plans should not be overlooked.”
Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols and investigate the statement, which Duterte made at a press conference. The vice president’s office has acknowledged a Reuters request for comment.
An average of 140 women and girls were killed by a partner or relative per day in 2023, the UN says
- The agencies reported approximately 51,100 women and girls were killed in 2023
- The rates were highest in Africa and the Americas and lowest in Asia and Europe
UNITED NATIONS: The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member per day last year, two UN agencies reported Monday.
Globally, an intimate partner or family member was responsible for the deaths of approximately 51,100 women and girls during 2023, an increase from an estimated 48,800 victims in 2022, UN Women and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime said.
The report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said the increase was largely the result of more data being available from countries and not more killings.
But the two agencies stressed that “Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded.” And they said, “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”
The highest number of intimate partner and family killings was in Africa – with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023, the report said. Africa also had the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population — 2.9 victims per 100,000 people.
There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.
According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners.
By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.
“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere,” the report said.
“An estimated 80 percent of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20 percent were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60 percent of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.
The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels.”
“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.
Russia says it downs seven Ukrainian missiles over Kursk region
Russia’s air defense systems destroyed seven Ukrainian missiles overnight over the Kursk region, governor of the Russian region that borders Ukraine said on Monday.
He said that air defense units also destroyed seven Ukrainian drones. He did not provide further details.
A pro-Russian military analyst Roman Alyokhin, who serves as an adviser to the governor, said on his Telegram messaging channel that “Kursk was subjected to a massive attack by foreign-made missiles” overnight.
