Nepal starts counting loss after Sunday's 6.8 earthquake with death toll rising to nine

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After panic and chaos subsided, Nepal on Monday began to take stock of the havoc created by Sunday's earthquake, the biggest since 1934, when over 8,000 people died. There were reports of the human toll rising to nine from the five killed the previous night, with some also claiming 10 deaths.

The home ministry and police were yet to officially confirm the figures. In addition to the deaths, there were several hundreds of casualties nationwide with Kathmandu valley alone accounting for nearly five dozen.

Hundreds of buildings had been either destroyed or damaged, the majority of them in eastern Nepal, closest to Sikkim, the epicentre of the tremor measuring 6.8 on the Richter. The quake had also triggered landslides, blocking a section of the highway in the east.

After recovering from the first shocks, people began angry protests in front of the British Embassy in Kathmandu, seeking compensation for the three people killed after the perimeter wall of the embassy collapsed on them. The embassy issued a statement on Monday, saying it regretted the deaths and that the British ambassador, John Tucknott, had met the victims' families. According to the protesters, the embassy has agreed to pay up to 50,000 pounds as compensation after consultations with the Nepal government.

Sajan Shrestha of Gorkha district was driving past the embassy on his two-wheeler with his daughter Anisha when the wall fell on them. It also killed a pedestrian, Bir Bahadur Majhi. Four more people were reported to have been injured.

Though Sunday's temblor was the biggest since the historical 1934 quake on the Nepal-Bihar border that killed 8,519 people in Nepal alone and destroyed over 80,000 buildings, the damage was less than its predecessors due to the epicentre being almost 300 km away aerially from Kathmandu.

Nepal experienced another major jolt in 1980, measuring 6.6, when farwestern Nepal bore the brunt, recording 125 deaths and with over 11,000 buildings destroyed. The last major quake was in 1988 when a quake measuring 6.7 demolished nearly 65,000 buildings and killed over 700 people.

Sunday's tremor had over 130 aftershocks, which would continue in Sikkim for some time, seismologists said. However, that would be a boon, releasing the pressure building up inside the earth's crist and lessening chances of another immediate killer quake.

... ... ... nepalawaz