More than 100 people dead in Nepal's remote western India

 More than 100 people dead in Nepal's remote western India

A rural western Nepal was rocked by an earthquake on Friday, leaving over 100 people dead.

500 kilometers (310 miles) west of Kathmandu, in the untamed districts of Jajarkot and West Rukum, security personnel have been sent in to support rescue operations.

Strong earthquakes were detected in Delhi and other nearby Indian towns, as well as in the capital of Nepal.

According to an army spokeswoman, around 100 individuals had been hurt. The hospital in Jajarkot is crowded with injured patients.

Within an hour following the first earthquake, three further tremors were detected, and many residents chose to spend the remainder of the night outside out of concern for other earthquakes and potential damage to their homes.

Local media broadcasted video images of multi-story brick buildings with crumbling façade. Posts on social media showed people sifting through debris in the dark to extract survivors from the wreckage of fallen buildings.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the prime minister of Nepal, expressed his "deep sorrow" on social networking site X over the death toll and destruction caused by the earthquake before traveling to the impacted area on Saturday. He said that he had given the go-ahead for security services to begin rescue and relief efforts right now.

However, landslides caused by the earthquake are obstructing roadways, making search and rescue efforts more difficult.

Suresh Sunar, the district police officer of Jajarkot, told the Reuters news agency that it was difficult to get a complete picture of the events.

"Even myself, I am in the open. We are gathering information, but it is difficult to reach outlying places with the cold and darkness," Mr. Sunar told Reuters.

The earthquake was reported by Nepal's Monitoring and Research Center at 23:47 local time (18:02 GMT).

With a magnitude of 5.6, the US Geological Survey classified the earthquake as shallow, indicating that it occurred closer to the surface of the earth.

Nepal is located near the Himalayas, a region known for its intense earthquake activity.

A 6.3-magnitude earthquake that struck Bajhang's western area last month caused casualties.

Two catastrophic earthquakes struck the nation in 2015, leaving 22,309 people wounded and 9,000 dead.

Most of the damage and fatalities were caused by the first earthquake, which struck on April 25, 2015, with a magnitude of 7.8. There were other aftershocks that followed, one measuring 7.3 in May of that year.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) reports that over 800,000 dwellings were either demolished or severely damaged by the earthquakes, mostly in the western and central provinces.

Numerous villages north of Kathmandu were leveled, and government buildings, certain road segments, and the well-known historic monuments in the Kathmandu Valley—UNESCO World Heritage Sites—were damaged or completely destroyed.