In the midst of digging out from the magnitude 7.8 quake that struck Nepal just three weeks ago, residents of Kathmandu find themselves once again in recovery mode. A powerful aftershock, with a preliminary magnitude registering 7.3, struck just east of Nepal's capital on Tuesday, sending an already rattled community running for cover yet again.
So far, the death toll is low, with only 42 reported thus far and over 1,110 injured. But it's early and with an infrastructure already crippled by April's deadly event, which killed over 8,000, the greatest impact may be felt among aid workers struggling to keep up with the mounting number of victims.
"I can still see massive clouds of mud and dust around, as massive landslides continue to happen," Bharat Shrestha, who was participating in rescue operations in a town about seven miles west of Chautara, says. "Concrete houses in Chautara have crumbled, and the main road leading to Chautara is completely blocked with debris."
Damage from the previous quake has left a large portion of Kathmandu's structures vulnerable. The New York Times reports that American structural engineers, assessing damage in the neighboring city of Bhaktapur, reported that approximately one-third of the city's buildings they examined may have been leveled from this latest event.
Ian Norton, foreign medical team coordinator for the World Health Organization, says that people in many parts of Nepal had begun salvaging things from "very precarious houses."
"We are still very worried by the magnitude, and the precarious buildings," Norton says. "We are in the injury management phase right now. We are now expecting that people in smaller houses in the districts will start to come forward with their injuries," reported The New York Times.
Several landslides have been reported in Nepal's Sindhupalchowk region and officials are warning residents to stay in open fields and keep the roads free. Norton also says that a vehicle used by a medical team working near the epicenter was buried by a landslide and the driver remains missing. Special response teams operating in the area may be mobilized to regions hit by yesterday's quake.
"All available helicopters, along with Medical Teams and SSR Teams are going to be mobilized to Dolakha and Sindhupalchowk soon," said Nepal's National Emergency Operation Centre.
The USGS reports that tremors were also felt in Afghanistan and Indonesia.
