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7.8 Quake Hits Nepal, Toppling Buildings, Killing Hundreds

A magnitude-6.7 aftershock rumbled Kathmandu and sent people running for open ground Sunday morning, a day after a massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake ravaged Nepal and the region. The death toll from the disaster topped 3,000, a police official told Reuters.

, reporting from the capital, described the scene on 

"Many of the people who had been too terrified to sleep in their own homes last night congregated in a series of mini tent cities around Kathmandu," Julie says.

"When it struck, I didn't feel it right away, but I heard this roar of people around me rise in sheer panic shouting 'It's coming!' and they began running for their lives all over again," she said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the aftershock, the largest of numerous others rattling frightened residents, registered at a shallow depth of 6 miles.


Minutes later, Nepal felt another aftershock measuring 5.0 in magnitude, says the 

At least three U.S. citizens are among the dead, the State Department said in a statement on Sunday. The total number of confirmed dead in Nepal was 2,430, with another 61 confirmed dead in India, and a handful of others in the Tibet region of China and Bangladesh.

Saturday's quake was close to Mt. Everest, sending down new avalanches of snow and rock.

"An earthquake that long set off avalanches all the way around us," Jon Reiter, an American mountaineer at the Napelese base camp, told CNN. "And they came down — they were large, they were massive avalanches."


Rescue helicopters lifted the wounded from the slopes. 

 at the base camp and 61 were injured, AP says.


Rescues crews were dispatched from around the world to the region, but severed communications and landslides hindered the effort. India sent four planes carrying 450 disaster relief personnel, which reached the country Sunday. China dispatched a 62-member search team, reports the 

A Pentagon statement said today that a U.S. military C-17 Globemaster departed Dover Air Force Base bound for Nepal.

The giant transport was carrying 70 personnel including a USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team, the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue team and several journalists, as well as 45 square tons of cargo. It is expected to arrive in Kathmandu on Monday, the statement said.

The United States is giving $1 million in immediate assistance and preparing a response team, says CNN. Britain, Pakistan and European Union countries are among nations sending teams, said the BBC.

In Kathmandu, tens of thousands endured freezing temperatures to sleep outside overnight for fear of further quake damage. Rescue workers and international aid teams started out at dawn to dig through rubble and debris in a desperate search for survivors.

Hospitals struggled to cope with the wounded. Reuters quotes a paramedic who said Kathmandu's Bir Hospital had received 300 to 350 patients with severe injuries; most of them died, he said.

Disasters

L. Carol Ritchie

Author

The desperate search for survivors continues Sunday in Nepal. Strong aftershocks woke thousands of Nepalese who were forced to spend the cold night outdoors.

Powerful aftershock jars Kathmandu; Nepal quake toll rises

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