KATHMANDU: More than 60 people were killed and over 100 others injured on midnight Friday when a shallow 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit western Nepal, a police spokesman said on Saturday.
Thirty-seven people have been killed in the Jajarkot district, while 27 deaths have been reported in neighboring Rukum West district, police spokesman Kuber Kadayat told Xinhua.
“The casualty could be even higher,” he added. “The rescue operation is ongoing.”
There were reports of destruction in other adjoining districts, but no loss of human lives was reported, Kadayat noted.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the earthquake jolted the western Jajarkot district at around 23:47 p.m. local time (1802 GMT) with a depth of 18 km.
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal expressed sorrow at the loss of life and property in the quake and ordered immediate rescue and relief operations in a post on social media X, formerly known as Twitter.
In 2015, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed some 9,000 people and damaged more than half a million houses in the mountainous country.
