Posted on 09/18/2011 1:10:19 PM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative
A major earthquake struck northeast India early Sunday evening that sent tremors as far as Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. The quake, which struck in the mountainous region near the town of Mangan in north Sikkim state, registered 6.8 on the Richter scale. Aftershocks measuring 6.1 and 4.8 followed half an hour after. So far, 7 people in Sikkim, 2 in Bihar, 2 in West Bengal have been reported dead and around 33 injured. Five people were reported dead in neighboring Nepal, killed when the wall of the British High Commission in Kathmandu collapsed, and one person was killed in nearby Bihar state in a stampede following the tremors. The death toll is expected to rise.
"It was a massive earthquake. We have alerted the armed forces and the paramilitary," Karma Gyatso, Sikkim's chief secretary, told Indian news channel CNN-IBN immediately after the quake was reported. Arvind Kumar, the principal resident commissioner of Sikkim had also confirmed that rescue operations had started.
Owing to the remote nature of the region and complete disruption of communication and power lines, news about damage and casualties have been filtering in slowly. Mangan, the district headquarters of North Sikkim, is in a thinly populated and remote area popular with toursts; the town itself is congested and hence the likelihood of further casualties is high.
(Excerpt) Read more at old.news.yahoo.com ...
Damn. Prayers up for our Indian, Bhutanese and Nepalese friends.
Magnitude 4.0 - ONTARIO-QUEBEC BORDER REGION, CANADA
Damn, Myers’s Rum and Pepsi all of the keyboard and screen. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
The Himalayas are well known for terrible landslides. This could wipe out entire towns. Potential for tragedy is high. Prayers.
Hopefully not a lot of casualties. Prayers up for those who died.
Just sent a prayer
GANGTOK: A powerful earthquake with a 6.8 magnitude hit Sikkim and several areas in the eastern part of the country and neighbouring Nepal, leaving 18 dead and over 100 injured besides causing extensive damage to buildings and roads.
The epicentre of the quake - the biggest in two decades - was located at Mangan and Sakyong areas, over 50 km from Gangtok on the Sikkim-Nepal border.
Seven persons were killed in Sikkim -- two at Singtham in east district, two in Rishi in west district and one at Mangan in north district, chief secretary Karma Gyatso said.
Gyatso said that two others had also died in other places, but could not give details.
In neighbouring West Bengal four deaths were reported -- three in Darjeeling district and one in Jalpaiguri district, chief secretary Samar Ghosh said.
Of the deaths in Darjeeling district, one each occurred in Kalimpong, Kurseong and Siliguri sub-divisions, Ghosh said.
In Bihar, two persons were killed in Nalanda and Darbhanga districts, official sources said.
A five-year-old girl and a youth were the two victims, they said.
At least five people were killed in Nepal, three of them outside the British embassy in Kathmandu, when a high brick-wall collapsed.
Tremors were also felt in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chandigarh and Delhi.
Four teams of National Disaster Response Force have been rushed to Sikkim and five more teams were being sent from Kolkata, cabinet secretary Ajit Kumar Seth told reporters after a meeting of top officials in Delhi convened on the direction of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Pray for the survivors and the families of the deceased.
thanks Constitutionalist Conservative for the topic, and thanks Ernest_at_the_Beach for the map gizmo.
There will be many more deaths reported in th next week or so. Think of how long it will take to reach all the small villages in that dangerous mountain terrain!
Prayers for the victims and the survivors, and the many buried in rubble. Lord have Mercy!
Of Possible Interest *PING*
well,in 5 or 6 months, this will be added to the numerous&Laughable excuses why Obama still hasn’t created any jobs in three years. (and after the brutal 2012 winter,you know that will be a future excuse)
not quite 118 days but pretty darn close to the cycle
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