At least 38 persons were killed and 133 injured in roof and wall collapse in Bihar after a high intensity earthquake rocked several parts of India and neighbouring Nepal on Saturday.
Special Secretary, State Disaster Management Department, Anirudh Kumar said that six persons died in East Champaran district, while four others lost their lives in Sitamarhi, both sharing borders with Nepal, the epicentre of the quake.
Other deaths have been reported from Darbhanga (2), while one death each has been reported from Supual, Araria, West Champaran, Sheohar and Saran, he said.
The Bihar Disaster Management Special Secretary said 133 persons have been injured in quake-related incidents in various parts of the state.
The injured have been counted from West Champaran, Sheikhpura, East Champaran, Sheohar, Nalanda, Munger, Vaishali, Darbhanga, Kisannganj, Araria and Vaishali among others, he said.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who cut short his visit in Delhi and rushed back home in the wake of the earthquake, arrived here late this afternoon.
Kumar straight away went to secretariat from Patna airport to hold a meeting with senior officials over the earthquake’s impact in the state, chief minister office sources said.
Vijay Sinha, Commandant of the 9th battalion of NDRF based at Bihta in Patna district, told PTI that each NDRF team comprising about 45 personnel have left for Supual, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj and Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
State DGP P K Thakur said that following the chief minister’s directives, all district police superintendents have been directed to alert the police stations on wireless and assess the extent of the damage.
Director, State Meteorological office, A K Sen said there was a possibility of secondary jerks of the earthquake for the next 48 hours, particularly in areas like Darbhanga, Araria and Kisanganj bordering Nepal and an alert has been sounded to the state government in this regard.
EARTHQUAKES-TIMELINE
List of deadliest earthquakes of the past 30 years
— August 11, 2012: Twin earthquakes with a magnitude 6.3 and 6.4 leave 306 dead and more than 3,000 injured near the Iranian city of Tabriz.
— March 11, 2011: Nearly 18,900 are killed when a tsunami triggered by a massive magnitude 9.0 undersea quake slams into the northeast coast of Japan, triggering a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi atomic plant.
— October 23, 2011: An earthquake of 7.2 magnitude rocks eastern Turkey, leaving more than 600 dead and at least 4,150 injured.
— January 12, 2010: Magnitude 7.0 quake hits Haiti, leaving between 250,000 and 300,000 dead.
— April 14, 2010: A 6.9-magnitude quake hits Yushu county in northwest China’s Qinghai province leaving 3,000 people dead and missing.
— May 12, 2008: A quake measuring 8.0 hits China’s southwest province of Sichuan, leaving more than 87,000 people dead or missing.
— May 27, 2006: A powerful quake in Indonesia’s Yogyakarta region kills 6,000 and leaves 1.5 million homeless.
— October 8, 2005: An earthquake of 7.6 kills more than 75,000 people, the vast majority of them in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Some 3.5 million are displaced.
— March 28, 2005: An earthquake on Indonesia’s Nias island off Sumatra leaves 900 dead.
— December 26, 2004: A massive undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra island triggers a tsunami which kills 220,000 in countries around the Indian Ocean, including 168,000 in Indonesia.
— December 26, 2003: A quake measuring 6.7 hits the Iranian city of Bam, killing at least 31,884 people and injuring 18,000.
— January 26, 2001: A massive 7.7 earthquake hits the western Indian state of Gujarat, killing 25,000 people and injuring 166,000.
— September 30, 1993: A 6.3-magnitude quake hits the western Indian state of Maharashtra, killing 7,601.
— October 20, 1991: A quake measuring 6.6 hits the Himalayan foothills of Uttar Pradesh state in India, killing 768.
— August 20, 1988: A magnitude 6.8 quake hits eastern Nepal, killing 721 people in Nepal and at least 277 in the neighbouring Indian state of Bihar.
— July 28, 1976: A magnitude 7.8 quake hits Tangshan, in north China’s Hebei province. Officials said 242,000 people died, although some western sources said the toll was higher.
— January 15, 1934: Magnitude 8.1 quake hits eastern Nepal and Bihar state in neighbouring India killing 10,700 people.
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