More than 150 people have been killed after an earthquake struck remote western Nepal on Friday.
The death toll was expected to rise because communications were still cut off in many places, officials said on Saturday.
While the epicentre was at Ramidanda in Jajarkot district, about 550 km from Kathmandu, the tremors were felt in New Delhi and parts of north India too.
Nepal’s Prime Minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, arrived in the affected region on Saturday, after expressing his “deep sorrow” at the loss of life and property wrought by the quake, on social media platform X. He said he had ordered security agencies to immediately launch rescue and relief operations.
Search and rescue operations are being hampered by roads becoming blocked by landslides that were triggered by the quake.
The US Geological Survey measured the earthquake at a magnitude of 5.6 and said it was a shallow earthquake, meaning it happened closer to the earth’s surface.
Nepal is situated along the Himalayas, where there is a lot of seismic activity. In 2015, the country suffered two devastating earthquakes in which 9,000 people were killed and 22,309 injured.
