Nepal was affected Tuesday by another powerful earthquake, less than three weeks after a separate quake that has killed over 8,000 people and injured countless others.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Nepal’s National Emergency Operation Center had counted 42 deaths and 1,117 injuries from the quake, which was measured by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) at a preliminary magnitude of 7.3. Last month’s earthquake, which struck Nepal on April 25, had a magnitude of 7.8 and has claimed 8,159 lives and counting.
In a telephone interview with The New York Times, engineering student Prakash Banjara talked about how “the earth started shaking so violently” as he was on an aid mission with 15 fellow students. “The mountains before my eyes started tumbling down in massive landslides,” he said, adding that he requested assistance for his fellow volunteers, who ended up stranded by landslides, with no contact to local police and a storm expected to approach.
“We are clinging together on the road, hoping the clouds will go away,” Banjara added. “I saw buildings crumble as we made our way here. Maybe there are people trapped in them. We have no way of knowing yet.”
This new earthquake had come just as Nepal was seemingly returning to normal, with activity picking up and people getting over the trauma of the initial quake. But on Tuesday, panic gripped the country’s residents, and as volunteer Jasmine Avgerakis related, “they went back to the pain again” following the more recent quake. The new earthquake’s epicenter was spotted some 50 miles east of Kathmandu and near the Nepal-China border, where a lot of towns were gutted by the April 25 quake.
Most of the fatalities (19) were recorded in the district of Dolakha, which is located about 24,000 feet above sea level. 77 people from Dolakha were killed in the April 25 earthquake.