Earthquake kills at least 10, injures hundreds in India and Bangladesh
Earthquake killed at least ten people in Inphal.
Earthquake killed at least ten people in Inphal.
NEW DELHI — A 6.7-magnitude earthquake left at least seven people dead, scores injured, and houses and buildings flattened in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur early Monday.
The quake occurred about 18 miles west of Imphal, the state capital, around 4:35 a.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Strong tremors were felt in China’s Tibet region, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Burma. Three people were reported dead in Bangladesh.
Another tremor, magnitude 3.6, was felt about five hours later.
Manipur’s chief minister, Okram Ibobi Singh, told reporters on Monday that the state was assessing the damage. Two teams from India’s National Disaster Response Force have been deployed to the area, he said.
The deputy commissioner of the Imphal West area, Ningthoujam Geoffrey, said three people died in his jurisdiction and 45 suffered injuries. Sixty houses and other buildings were damaged, Geoffrey said.
Imphal resident R.K. Wangsana, 25, said he was awakened Monday by the sounds of his mother’s screams and a wall crumbling over him. After the shaking stopped, he said, he clawed his way out of the wreckage.
“I saw a little hole near me and I started pushing. It made some space in the rubble, and slowly I crawled out,” he said.
He then rescued his injured mother and sister.
“Now we are out under the sky,” Wangsana said. “I don’t have any place to go. My home is gone, and I am clueless what I am going to do next.”
A major bridge and the newly built Central Agricultural University were damaged, and bricks tumbled from the building that houses a historic women’s market, Ima Keithel.
Leika Yumnam, who works with a local social service organization, said the tremors jolted her from sleep. Frightened, she ran to check on her parents as furniture tumbled. Fortunately, they had already left home for their morning yoga class, she said.
One Imphal resident, Ram Wangkheirakpam, said he thought “death and destruction were imminent” when the quake struck.
The tremor was the deadliest in India since the Nepal earthquakes in Apriland May, which killed more than 8,000 people, including more than 100 in India’s border states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The collision of two of Earth’s tectonic plates — the Indian plate and the much larger Eurasian plate — has made the Himalayan region one of the most high-risk zones in the world for seismic activity.
Ranju Dodum in Itanagar, India, and Farheen Fatima in New Delhi contributed to this report.
Annie Gowen is The Post’s India bureau chief and has reported for the Post throughout South Asia and the Middle East.
