Nepal: 6 die as magnitude 6.3 quake jolts country

The death toll from a house collapse incident in Nepal followed by subsequent tremors rose to nine on Wednesday, local police informed.

The Chief District Officer of Doti, Kalpana Shrestha, informed ANI over the phone that the five injured people were being taken to the hospital.

"Five injured are being taken to the hospital. Dozens of houses have been damaged with landslides at various locations across the district," she said.

As per the officials, among the deceased are one female and two children. However, the identities of casualties are yet to be ascertained.

The Nepal Army has been mobilised in the affected areas to carry out the search and rescue operations, the officials said.

Earlier, local officials had informed that at least three people were confirmed dead, after a house collapsed in the Doti district of Nepal, which underwent two earthquakes and an aftershock in a span of just 24 hours.

The Chairman of Purbichauki Village Council, Ram Prasad Upadhyay, confirmed to ANI on Wednesday that three people died in the incident.

In the early hours of Wednesday, an earthquake of magnitude 6.3 rocked Nepal, India's National Centre for Seismology (NCS) reported.

It occurred at around 2.12am (local time) in Nepal, at a depth of 10km.

The tremors were also felt in India's capital New Delhi and its surrounding areas.

"Earthquake of Magnitude: 6.3, Occurred on 09-11-2022, 01:57:24 IST, Lat: 29.24 & Long: 81.06, Depth: 10 Km, Location: Nepal," NCS reported, via a tweet.

This is the second earthquake in Nepal within 24 hours.

The country also underwent an earthquake of magnitude 4.5 the previous morning, the NCS reported.

This one occurred 155km northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal, at a depth of 100km.

"Earthquake of Magnitude: 4.5, Occurred on 08-11-2022, 04:37:27 IST, Lat: 28.57 & Long: 86.58, Depth: 100 Km, Location: 155km NE of Kathmandu, Nepal," tweeted NCS.

On July 31, an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 took place 147 km ESE of Kathmandu, Nepal at 8.13am IST around Martim Birta of Khotang district, according to the National Earthquake Monitoring and Research Centre (NEMRC).

The depth of the epicentre was monitored at 10km in eastern Nepal, and determined to be at 27.14°N latitude and 86.67°E longitude.

Earlier in 2015, a high-intensity earthquake of magnitude 7.8 on the Richter scale struck central Nepal between its capital Kathmandu and city of Pokhara. It is estimated to have killed 8,964 people and injured nearly 22,000 people.

The earthquake, labelled Gorkha, also shook several cities across north India, with tremors felt in Lahore, Pakistan, Lhasa in Tibet, and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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These recent earthquakes in Nepal have caused unprecedented damage to lives and property, thus necessitating the demand for well-framed policy measures to manage them.

Nepal suffered its worst recorded earthquake in 1934, which was measured at 8.0 and destroyed the cities of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan.

It has been established that the Indian plate is getting subducted under the Eurasian plate at a rate of 5cm a year. This is responsible for the formation and increasing height of young fold mountains of the Himalayas, but also for making the region prone to earthquakes. Disasters like quakes can wreak havoc if preparedness is not ample.

• Asia