Katmandu: A fresh 7.3 earthquake rattled Nepal and northern India on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and injuring 300 in the region as many buildings already weakened by last month’s massive temblor were sent tumbling to the ground.
At least four people were killed in Chautara town in Sindhupalchowk district, north of the Nepali capital Katmandu, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration said.
Police in the Himalayan nation confirmed at least three deaths, as the government struggled with patchy phone lines to gather information. It wasn’t immediately clear if they were referring to the same people.
Four people were also killed in Indian states bordering Nepal, one in Uttar Pradesh and three in Bihar, officials said.
One person died in Tibet after rocks fell on a car, according to Chinese state media.
The US Geological Survey said Tuesday’s earthquake was centerd 68 km (about 42 miles) west of the town of Namche Bazaar, close to Mount Everest and the border with Tibet.
A magnitude 7.3 quake, it was felt as far apart as New Delhi and Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The quake was followed by at least half a dozen aftershocks, including one 6.3 magnitude quake.
The temblor, which struck around 12.30 p.m. local time, came just weeks after a 7.8 quake killed more than 8,000 people and damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in Nepal.
The epicenter of Tuesday’s quake was close to Everest Base Camp, which was evacuated after an avalanche triggered by last month’s quake killed 18 climbers. Mountaineers seeking to scale the world’s tallest peak have called off this year’s Everest season.
Nepal is still picking up the pieces from the devastation caused by last month’s earthquake, the worst in more than 80 years in the country. Hundreds of thousands of buildings, including many ancient sites, were destroyed and many more were damaged.
PANIC IN Katmandu
The latest earthquake unleashed panic in Katmandu, Reuters witnesses said.
Parents could be seen clutching children tightly and hundreds of people were frantically trying to call relatives on their mobile phones.
Shopkeepers closed their shops and the streets were jammed with people rushing to check on their families.
“I’m heading straight home,” said Bishal Rai, a man in his 20s, who said he was trying to contact his family in the north of the capital.
Medics and volunteers formed a human chain at a Katmandu hospital to keep a path open for ambulances.
A volunteer at the hospital said five or six injured people had been brought in, two on stretchers. So far, few ambulances had arrived, he said.
Some aid teams which were on their way back from Nepal were considering whether to return to the country to help.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at welcoming ceremony for a military rescue delegation after it landed back in Tel Aviv from Nepal, said they were prepared to go back if needed.
De Wojtek Wilk, CEO of the Polish Center for International Aid, said he could send his team of medics “back straight from the airport.”
“There is a huge concern for the people who may be living in structures that did not prove earthquake sound,” he said.
Indian Air Force spokesman Simranpal Singh Birdi said one MiG 17 aircraft stationed in Katmandu has been sent to Namche Bazaar to assess the damage.
“Our team is conducting an aerial survey before we decide to launch rescue operations,” he said.
LEFT SHAKEN
In Sindhupalchowk district, which suffered the heaviest death toll in last month’s quake, the new temblor also triggered at least three big landslides in the district. A district official there said 12 people had been injured.
“The latest earthquake has left us shaken. I am still trembling,” the official, Diwakar Koirala, said, when reached soon after the quake.
Rhita Doma Sherpa, a nurse with the Mountain Medicine Center in Namche Bazaar near the quake’s epicenter, said the quake caused cracks in several buildings, including a school, but she had not seen major damage.
“It was lunchtime. All the kids were outside. Thank god,” she said.
Residents in the Indian town of Siliguri, near the border with Nepal, said chunks of concrete fell off one or two buildings.
Last month’s quake killed at least 8,046 people and injured more than 17,800. It was recorded at 7.8 magnitude, almost six times stronger than Tuesday’s quake.
But a 7.3 magnitude earthquake has the potential to cause significant damage and landslides.
Nine killed, buildings collapse in fresh Nepal earthquake
Nine killed, buildings collapse in fresh Nepal earthquake
Trump says he would love to make a deal with Iran
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he would love to make a deal with Iran to improve bilateral relations, but added that Tehran should not develop a nuclear weapon.
“I say this to Iran, who's listening very intently, 'I would love to be able to make a great deal. A deal where you can get on with your lives,”” Trump told reporters in Washington.
“They cannot have one thing. They cannot have a nuclear weapon and if I think that they will have a nuclear weapon ... I think that's going to be very unfortunate for them,” He said.
Drone attack sparks blaze at oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar, governor says
A Ukrainian drone attack overnight sparked a fire at an oil depot in Russia’s southern region of Krasnodar that has since been extinguished, regional officials said on Wednesday.
A series of drone attacks by Ukraine on Russia’s energy facilities have sparked fires in recent days at a major oil refinery in the Volgograd region, as well as at the Astrakhan gas processing plant.
“The fire in a tank with oil product residues in the village of Novominskaya in the Kanevsky District was fully extinguished,” the region’s operational authorities said on the Telegram messaging app.
Earlier, Veniamin Kondratyev, governor of the Krasnodar region, said that there were no injuries in the fire that was caused by a falling drone debris. A team of 19 people wielding 19 items of equipment were fighting the flames, he said.
Kondratyev did not say which depot was on fire or detail the extent of damage.
The Russian defense ministry said that four Ukrainian drones were destroyed over the Russian territory overnight, but did not mention the Krasnodar region in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
The ministry only reports drones that its air defense systems destroy, not how many were launched.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Kyiv says that its attacks inside Russia are aimed at destroying infrastructure key to Moscow’s war in Ukraine and are in response to Russian continued bombing of Ukraine.
5 people wounded in shooting at Ohio cosmetics warehouse
- Police say five people have been wounded in a shooting at a cosmetics warehouse in New Albany, Ohio
- A spokesperson for New Albany says victims of Tuesday night’s shooting have been transported to the hospital
NEW ALBANY: Five people were wounded in a shooting Tuesday night at a cosmetics warehouse in Ohio, officials said.
The victims have been transported to the hospital and the suspect is no longer believed to be at the building, said Josh Poland, a spokesperson for the city of New Albany.
The shooting happened at the warehouse for a company that makes products including cosmetics and toiletries. Police did not immediately provide details of the circumstances surrounding the shooting or the conditions of those wounded.
Police were working to evacuate all the employees following the shooting, which happened just before 11 p.m., police said in a statement.
India PM Modi’s party seeks to oust anti-corruption crusader in New Delhi state elections
- Thousands are voting in the Indian capital’s state legislature election, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party trying to unseat a powerful regional group that has ruled New Delhi
- Kejriwal’s party won 62 out of 70 seats in the last election in 2020
NEW DELHI: Thousands begin voting in the Indian capital’s state legislature election on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party trying to unseat a powerful regional group that has ruled New Delhi for over a decade.
Voters walked to polling booths on a cold, wintry morning to cast their ballots across the sprawling capital. Manish Sisodia, a key Aam Aadmi Party leader, and others offered prayers in a temple before voting.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is up against the AAP, led by Arvind Kejriwal, which runs New Delhi and has built a vast support base on its welfare policies and an anti-corruption movement. Kejriwal, a popular crusader against corruption, suffered a setback as he himself faced graft allegations.
The AAP won 62 out of 70 seats in a landslide victory in the last election, held in 2020. leaving BJP with only eight and the Congress party with none. The AAP had also swept the 2015 state elections, winning 67 seats, with the BJP taking three.
Modi and Kejriwal have both campaigned vigorously in roadshows with thousands of supporters tailing them. They have offered to revamp government schools and provide free health services and electricity, and a monthly stipend of over 2,000 rupees ($25) to poor women.
Voting ends later Wednesday, with results due on Saturday. More than 15 million people are eligible to vote in New Delhi’s election.
Arati Jerath, a political commentator, predicted a tight contest between the two parties, saying, “Even since the AAP rose to prominence, it has been a one-sided contest.”
Delhi, a city of more than 20 million people, is a federal territory that Modi’s party has not won for over 27 years despite having a sizable support base there.
Kejriwal and other AAP leaders recently faced graft allegations in a liquor license case.
Neerja Chowdhury, a political analyst, said the liquor policy case — in which several AAP leaders, including Kejriwal, went to jail — had dented Kejriwal’s clean image.
Kejriwal was arrested last year along with two key leaders of his party ahead of national elections on charges of receiving bribes from a liquor distributor. They have consistently denied the accusations, saying they are part of a political conspiracy. The Supreme Court allowed the release of Kejriwal and other ministers on bail.
Kejriwal later relinquished the chief minister’s post to his most senior party leader.
The BJP, which failed to secure a majority on its own in last year’s national election but formed the government with coalition partners, has gained some lost ground by winning two state elections in northern Haryana and western Maharashtra states.
Modi’s party hopes to benefit after last week’s federal budget slashed income taxes on the salaried middle class, one of its key voting blocks.
Opposition parties widely condemned Kejriwal’s arrest, accusing Modi’s government of misusing federal investigation agencies to harass and weaken political opponents, and pointed to several raids, arrests and corruption investigations of key opposition figures in the months before the national election.
Kejriwal vowed to be an anti-corruption crusader and formed the AAP in 2012 after tapping into public anger against the then-Congress party government over a series of corruption scandals. His pro-poor policies have focused on fixing state-run schools and providing cheap electricity, free health care and bus transport for women.
The BJP was voted out of power in Delhi in 1998 by the Congress party, which ran the government for 15 years. In the 2015 and 2020 elections in Delhi, the AAP won landslide victories.
Vietnamese man sentenced to 44 years for plotting suicide attack at London’s Heathrow
- He spent a year in Yemen, where he received “military-type” training and helped prepare the group’s magazine, Inspire, working directly with Samir Khan, a US citizen who served as its editor and died in a US drone strike in 2011, according to the departme
LONDON: A Vietnamese man was sentenced to 44 years in prison for attempting to carry out a suicide attack at Heathrow International Airport in London, the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday.
Minh Quang Pham, 41, who was alleged to have traveled to Yemen to receive military training from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, had previously pleaded guilty charges that included providing material support to the group.
US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle R. Sassoon described his actions not only as an affront to the safety of the US “but to the principles of peace and security that we hold dear.”
“Today’s sentencing underscores our collective resolve to stop terrorism before it occurs, and place would-be terrorists in prison,” Sassoon said in a statement.
The Justice Department said Pham traveled from the United Kingdom to Yemen in December 2010 and took an oath of allegiance to the militant group, which the United States lists as a terrorist organization.
He spent a year in Yemen, where he received “military-type” training and helped prepare the group’s magazine, Inspire, working directly with Samir Khan, a US citizen who served as its editor and died in a US drone strike in 2011, according to the department.
Pham was arrested by British authorities in 2011 and extradited to the United States four years later to face terrorism charges, it added.
