Toll at 1,394 in devastating Nepal quake

Temblor topples buildings, sets off deadly avalanche

Rescue workers remove debris at Durbar Square after an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 25, 2015. A strong magnitude-7.9 earthquake shook Nepal's capital and the densely populated Kathmandu Valley before noon Saturday, causing extensive damage with toppled walls and collapsed buildings, officials said. (AP Photo/ Niranjan Shrestha)
Rescue workers remove debris at Durbar Square after an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 25, 2015. A strong magnitude-7.9 earthquake shook Nepal's capital and the densely populated Kathmandu Valley before noon Saturday, causing extensive damage with toppled walls and collapsed buildings, officials said. (AP Photo/ Niranjan Shrestha)

KATMANDU, Nepal -- A magnitude-7.8 earthquake hit Nepal on Saturday, causing widespread fatalities, damage to historic temples and homes, and avalanches near Mount Everest, authorities said.

Reports of casualties varied as rescuers worked frantically to free victims from the rubble. Hundreds of injured people filled hospitals in the capital, Katmandu, and around the quake's epicenter of Lamjung, about 40 miles from the capital.

Inspector Yuvraj Khadka of Nepal's national police force said that rescue effort was continuing through the night and the death toll had reached 1,394. Officials in Nepal estimated 4,279 were hurt.

"We never imagined that we would face such devastation," Minendra Rijal, Nepal's minister for information and communication, said in a nationally televised briefing.

According to the ministry, the government has approved $4.9 million for immediate relief efforts.

The earthquake was strong enough to be felt across the northern part of neighboring India, Bangladesh, Tibet and Pakistan, where 50 people died.

The airport at Katmandu has been ordered to remain open 24 hours to allow relief aid flights to arrive, and immigration stations have been told to remain open and to waive any visa fees for aid workers.

The government is telling citizens to use motor vehicles only in emergencies to conserve fuel. All schools in the affected areas will be closed for five days, Rijal said.

Damaged roads were clogged with traffic, hindering relief efforts.

"We are extremely concerned about the fate of communities in towns and villages in rural areas closer to the epicenter," said Jagan Chapagain, Asia-Pacific director for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, in an emailed statement.

"Roads have been damaged or blocked by landslides and communication lines are down preventing us from reaching local Red Cross branches to get accurate information. We anticipate that there will be considerable destruction and loss of life."

Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, who was attending a summit in Jakarta, tried to rush back home but made it as far as Bangkok, where his connecting flight to Katmandu was canceled because the airport was shut down for commercial flights.

In Katmandu, residents said they were staying outside their homes, afraid to go inside, and still feeling the aftershocks hours after the initial quake, which was originally reported as a magnitude-7.9.

More than two dozen aftershocks jolted the area after the first quake, which struck just before noon. At the time, Shrish Vaidya, who runs an advertising agency, was in his two-story house outside Katmandu with his parents.

"It is hard to describe. The house was shaking like crazy. We ran out and it seemed like the road was heaving up and down," Vaidya, 46, said.

Once the first shaking stopped, Vaidya thought his family could return indoors by evening. But the jolts kept coming, and they felt safer outdoors.

At nightfall, residents described Katmandu as a "tent city" with food and water severely limited. Many residents were forced to sleep in the open air.

The city was in a state of "near total darkness" before 9:30 p.m., according to Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times.

The earthquake was the worst in Nepal in decades; the country suffered a devastating earthquake in 1934, when thousands died.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit at 11:56 a.m. in Lamjung. Officials said the quake occurred at a depth of only 7 miles, which is considered shallow in geological terms. The shallower the quake, the more destructive power it carries. It was the largest shallow quake since the 8.2 temblor off the coast of Chile on April 1, 2014.

pent-up pressure

Seismologists have expected a major earthquake in western Nepal, where there is pent-up pressure from the grinding between tectonic plates -- the northern Eurasia plate and the upthrusting Indian plate. Still, witnesses described a chaotic rescue effort during the first hours after the quake, as emergency workers and volunteers grabbed tools and bulldozers from construction sites, and dug with hacksaws, mangled rebar, and their hands.

Nepal's shoddy building standards and lack of preparedness for a major earthquake were the subjects of an international conference in Katmandu earlier this month.

Many structures in Nepal are made of unreinforced brick or rubble and field stone, and scores of people were injured in the quake by falling bricks.

Nepal's National Society for Earthquake Technology had previously estimated that a large-scale quake in central Nepal could kill more than 100,000 and displace more than 1.8 million people.

Though many have worried about the stability of the concrete high-rises that have been hastily erected in Katmandu, the most damage Saturday was to the oldest part of the city, which is studded with temples and palaces made of wood and unmortared brick.

"The old temples, houses and all have been destroyed," Sanket Lamichhane, who works at an advertising company, said by phone from Katmandu.

Four of the area's seven UNESCO World Heritage sites were severely damaged: Bhaktapur Durbar Square, a temple complex built in the shape of a conch shell; Patan Durbar Square, which dates to the third century; Basantapur Durbar Square, which was the residence of Nepal's royal family until the 19th century; and the Boudhanath Stupa, one of the oldest Buddhist monuments in the Himalayas.

For many, the biggest loss was the collapse of the nine-story Dharahara Tower, which was built in 1832 on the orders of the queen. The tower had recently reopened to the public, and visitors could climb a narrow spiral staircase to a viewing platform around 200 feet above the city.

Police on Saturday said they had pulled about 60 bodies from the rubble of the tower.

The head of the U.N. cultural agency, Irina Bokova, said in a statement that UNESCO was ready to help Nepal rebuild from "extensive damage, including to historic monuments and buildings of the Kathmandu Valley."

deadly avalanche

An avalanche triggered by the earthquake swept across Nepal's Mount Everest region Saturday, killing at least 10 climbers and guides, slamming into a section of the mountaineering base camp, and leaving an unknown number of people injured and missing, officials said.

Numerous climbers may now be cut off on routes leading to the top of the world's highest peak.

The avalanche began on Mount Kumori, a 22,966-foot-high mountain just a few miles from Everest, gathering strength as it headed toward the base camp where climbing expeditions have been preparing to make their summit attempts in the coming weeks, said Ang Tshering of the Nepal Mountaineering Association.

The avalanche -- or perhaps a series of avalanches hidden in a mass of white -- plowed into a part of base camp, a sprawling seasonal village of climbers, guides and porters, flattening at least 30 tents, Tshering said. With communication very limited at Everest, it was not immediately clear how many of those injured and killed were at base camp, and how many were elsewhere on the mountain.

Among those whose status was unknown was Iestyn Richards-Rees, who was attempting to be the youngest Welshman to scale the peak by the North Col route through Tibet.

About 350 climbers were awaiting their turn at the base camp at an altitude of 17,598 feet as bad weather delayed their plans, while many were already on their way up, said Zimba Zangbu Sherpa, who is a former president of the association.

An official with Nepal's mountaineering department, Gyanendra Shrestha, said the bodies of 10 people had been recovered and an unknown number remained missing or injured. Their nationalities were unclear as climbers described chaotic attempts to treat the injured and rescuers feared more landslides and aftershocks that continue to rattle the region. Chinese media reported that a Chinese climber and two Sherpa guides were among the dead.

The economy of Nepal, a nation of 27.8 million people, depends heavily on tourism, principally trekking and Himalayan mountain climbing.

Dan Fredinburg, a Google executive who described himself as an adventurer, was among the dead, Google confirmed. Lawrence You, the company's director of privacy, posted online that Fredinburg was with three other Google employees hiking Mount Everest. The other three, he added, are safe. Fredinburg was a product manager and the head of privacy at Google X.

Separately, Google said it had launched a "person finder" tool to help track people missing in the earthquake and would commit $1 million to its response.

Aid starts to arrive

Relief efforts have begun to form across the region. Prime Minister Rijal at the news conference said Nepal sent a formal request to China for aid and that India is sending 10 heavy-lift helicopters and five medium-lift helicopters.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi called an urgent meeting to coordinate relief and sent rescue teams to Nepal.

Indian air force planes were allowed to carry in 43 tons of relief material, including tents and foods, and nearly 200 rescuers, India's External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said. The planes were returning to New Delhi with Indian citizens who were stranded in Katmandu. India's state-run Air India announced that it would begin relief flights to the Nepalese capital today.

At least 34 people were killed and dozens more injured in India, the country's government said.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. ambassador to Nepal, Peter Bodde, had issued a disaster declaration that would allow $1 million in humanitarian assistance to be available immediately. A disaster-response team and an urban search-and-rescue team from the U.S. Agency for International Development also would be deployed, he said in a statement.

"We are working closely with the government of Nepal to provide assistance and support," Kerry said. "To the people in Nepal and the region affected by this tragedy we send our heartfelt sympathies. The United States stands with you during this difficult time."

Doctors Without Borders said four teams would leave this morning for Nepal from Bihar state in India, close to the Nepal border. The organization also is sending in 3,000 kits including medical supplies.

Handicap International, which had a presence in Nepal with 47 workers before the earthquake, was already busy with the emergency response.

"One of our projects there, because it's earthquake-prone, is to help hospital staffs, physical therapists and others to anticipate the kind of injury we tend to see after a quake," said spokesman Mica Bevington.

Countries around the globe pledged aid while Pope Francis offered prayers for the victims and those working to save them.

"His Holiness commends the souls of the victims to the loving mercy of the Almighty and he offers encouragement to the civil authorities and emergency personnel as they continue their rescue efforts and assistance to those touched by this tragedy," the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said in a statement.

The European Union was considering "some budget support" to Nepal, according to a joint statement by the EU's foreign-policy chief, development chief and humanitarian chief. It did not provide details or amounts.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Twitter that Britain "will do all we can to help those caught up in it." Germany, Norway, Italy, France, Monaco and Mexico also pledged help.

Information for this article was contributed by Annie Gowen, Rama Lakshmi and Anup Kaphle of The Washington Post; by Anto Antony, Kartikay Mehrotra, Tony Jordan, Debjit Chakraborty, Jeanette Rodrigues, Unni Krishnan, Adi Narayan, Bhuma Shrivastava, Abhishek Shanker, Gwen Ackerman and Jordan Robertson of Bloomberg News; by Binaj Gurubacharya, Muneeza Naqvi, Munir Ahmed, Jan M. Olsen, Seth Borenstein, Tim Sullivan, Gregory Katz and staff members of The Associated Press; by Ellen Barry, Gardiner Harris, Nida Najar, Hari Kumar, Bhadra Sharma, Chris Buckley of The New York Times; and by Bhrikuti Rai and Julie Makinen, Mohiuddin Kader, Michael Hayden, Sarah Parvini and Carol J. Williams of the Los Angeles Times.

A Section on 04/26/2015

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