The epicenter of the quake was around the Jajarkot region, a sparsely populated region with about 190,000 inhabitants in western Nepal. The head of the district said it is “difficult to get information” in the “cold and dark night”. Rescue workers must also first get past landslides to reach affected areas.
The earthquake was also felt in the Indian capital New Delhi, about 500 kilometers away.
Mountainous Nepal lies on top of a fault line and is more often hit by earthquakes. In 2015, almost 9,000 people were killed when the country was hit by two earthquakes, one of which had a magnitude of 7.8. More than half a million houses were completely destroyed and entire villages were wiped out.