GANGTOK/NEW DELHI: At least nine people have been reportedly killed
and nearly 100 injured Sunday as a 6.8 intensity earthquake violently
hit the Sikkim-Nepal border region, jolting large parts of India,
Bangladesh and Nepal too.
According to the media reports, tens
of thousands scurried out of their homes just after 6 p.m. in numerous
cities including New Delhi following the powerful tremor that was
quickly followed by two major aftershocks. The India Meteorological
Department (IMD) said the epicentre of the quake was on the
Sikkim-Nepal border.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh immediately convened a meeting of the National Disaster Management Authority.
One
of the dead was a child, officials in Gangtok said. Another was
Sandipan Banerjee, an official with a pharmaceutical company who died
when a house collapsed in Rangpo, 40 km from Gangtok. Another man died
when his vehicle was trapped in a massive mudslide on the outskirts of
Gangtok.
The worst, officials said, was feared in the Sikkim-Nepal border region, where mudslides had blockaded roads.
At
least five people were killed in Nepal, three of them in Kathmandu
alone, triggering panic and chaos all across the Himalayan kingdom,
news reports said. The British embassy in Kathmandu, located in the
Lainchaur area close to the Indian embassy, collapsed after the quake,
smashing a car and killing three people inside.
Dozens were injured as houses crashed across the mountainous country, snapping communication lines.
Across
India, buildings shook triggering panic almost all over northern and
eastern India, including Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand,
Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Mizoram. In Assam’s major city Guwahati,
people ran out of their homes. Power supply was disrupted in parts of
northern West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said in Kolkata.
"In
no time all the people in my neighbourhood were out of their
apartments," said Anjani Kumari, who lives on Boring Road in Patna,
Bihar. The experience was particularly frightening for those in high
rises. "I was watching TV and for a few seconds thought my head was
spinning. When I realised it was an earthquake, I ran out," said
Meenakshi Sinha, who lives on the seventh floor of an apartment complex
in Noida. She said the tremors lasted 30 to 40 seconds.
Lucknow
resident Vijay Dutt told media: "There were strong tremors. In our
building, everybody rushed out fearing the worst. The furniture shook
and windows rattled. It was scary," he added.
In Tripura,
officials said the quake was also felt in neighbouring Bangladesh. This
is the fourth earthquake to hit India this month. An earthquake
measuring 4.2 on the Richter Scale had shaken north India Sep 7 at
around with its epicentre near Sonepat in Haryana, 65 km from New Delhi. ONline
