New Delhi: Deputy head of the Nalgarh civic body was among the 128 people killed in a powerful earthquake yesterday night. Houses collapsed in Jajarkot, a remote mountainous town in Nepal, when a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck just before midnight.
Sarita Singh, deputy head of the Nalgarh municipality in Jajarkot was killed in the quake, officials said.
The impact of the quake was felt in Kathmandu and surrounding districts, and even in New Delhi.
The Nepal Army mobilised its personnel Friday soon after the earthquake to carry out rescue works at the incident site.
The Jajarkot and Rukum districts of western Nepal were worst hit by the quake, according to state-run Nepal Television.
Nepal is nestled in a geologically active region, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates collide, forming the Himalayas and making earthquakes a frequent occurrence.
In 2015, about 9,000 people were killed in two earthquakes in Nepal. Whole towns, centuries-old temples and other historic sites were reduced to rubble, with more than a million houses destroyed, at a cost to the economy of $6 billion.