Again 7.3 Earthquake Magnitude Hits Nepal (Video)

A deadly magnitude 7.3 earthquake has struck Nepal, two weeks after a devastating quake killed more than 8,000 people in the Himalayan nation, the USGS has reported.

Police said at least 13 people had been killed in the new quake, which the USGS initially reported as magnitude 7.1, before later upgrading it to magnitude 7.3.

The quake, which struck 18km southeast of Kodari, near the base camp for Mt Everest, was measured at a shallow depth of about 18km. A series of aftershocks – including one 6.3 magnitude tremor – later hit in the same area, the USGS reported.

A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration said four people were killed in Chautara, Nepal, after the earthquake destroyed several buildings there.

“The situation in Chautara is that several buildings in the town have collapsed,” spokesman Paul Dillon told the Reuters news agency by telephone from Kathmandu. “There are four fatalities.”

Emergency officials told Al Jazeera that three people had been killed in Kathmandu, three had been killed in Sindhupalchowk district, five were killed in Dolakha district and one person died in both Sarlahi and Dhanausha districts.

At least 300 people injured in the Kathmandu Valley, police said, and at least four buildings are believed to have collapsed in the east of Kathmandu.

Police issued a public warning, calling for people to stay in open areas and to send text messages instead of making calls, to prevent the network from becoming jammed.

‘Utter panic’

Al Jazeera’s Annette Ekin, reporting from Kathmandu, said that there was “utter panic” in the capital following the quake.

“The earth just started rolling. Everyone ran out onto the streets and all of the shops are now shuttered,” she said, adding that the quake seemed to last about 30 seconds.

A woman who works for a finance company in Thamel, in Kathmandu, told Al Jazeera that she had clung on to a pillar inside her building when the quake struck.

“I was screaming. It felt like the house was falling,” she said.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, also reporting from Kathmandu, said the quake was so powerful that it made the building he was in “feel like jelly”.

Details later…

Again 7.3 Earthquake Magnitude Hits Nepal (Video)

Earthquake kills 150 in China

At least 150 people have been killed and some 1,300 injured after a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck in south-west China, state media say.

The US Geological Survey said the quake struck about 11km north-west of Wenping in Yunnan province at 16:30 local time (08:30 GMT).

A major rescue and relief operation is under way.

State broadcaster CCTV said the earthquake was the strongest to hit the province in 14 years.

The USGS said the quake struck at a depth of about 10km in a remote mountainous area in Yunnan province.

The tremor was also felt in the neighbouring provinces of Guizhou and Sichuan.

Xinhua said about 12,000 homes had collapsed in Ludian, a county of some 439,000 people, north-east of Yunnan province’s capital, Kunming.

All of the casualties reported so far are in Qiaojia County of the Zhaotong region, which appeared to be the hardest hit.

Ma Liya, a resident of Zhaotong, told Xinhua that the streets there were like “battlefield after bombardment”, adding her neighbour’s house, a new two-storey building, had collapsed.

The government is sending 2,000 tents, 3,000 folding beds, 3,000 quilts and 3,000 coats to the disaster zone, the report said.

After initial reports of a death toll of 26, Xinhua reported that the number killed had risen sharply, to 150.

The news agency says the epicentre of the earthquake was in Longtoushan in Yunnan’s Ludian county.

Chen Guoyong, the head of Longtoushan township, told Xinhua that many houses had fallen and rescuers had been sent to the epicentre.

Many people rushed out of buildings onto the street after the quake hit, electricity supplies were cut and at least one school collapsed, Xinhua reports.

Communications have also been seriously affected.

South-west China lies in an area that is prone to earthquakes.

An earthquake in Sichuan in 2008 killed tens of thousands of people.

And in 1970, a magnitude 7.7 quake in Yunnan killed at least 15,000 people.

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Earthquake kills 150 in China