Earthquake in Nepal

[Deleted]

We've all heard about this today, and the news is clearly only going to get worse. Unfortunately, as usual, most of the news we are getting here is about tourists at places like the Everest base camp.

At least all of the usual disaster organisations are already on their way to the other side of the planet. They are great professionals and have good equipment, so I hope they will be able to help in Kathmandu and other towns of the region.

The latest death count on the news is something like 1341 but I'm sure that it will get much higher in the coming days.

[bixaorellana]

You are so right about that, Kerouac. The toll is already @600 higher than when you posted.
I can't bear to read the articles or especially, look at the pictures, but I have gleaned that this was the strongest recorded earthquake in Nepal's history.
These graphs show the intensity of the quake activity in the past 20 hours. (you have to go to the next page to see the big one)
earthquaketrack.com/p/nepal/recent

[anshjain97]

Terrible...tremors were felt even nearly 1500 km away.

I have a friend there, who is all fine but many of his friends' houses have been destroyed. Rehabilitation work has started, so that's good.

[bixaorellana]

Not surprisingly, the more that is known, the worse the situation appears.

Google has opened up its Person Finder tool to help people looking for those who might have been affected by the quake: link

[komsomol]

More than 5000 now; they say no less than 10000 soon.

[Deleted]

Apparently the time of the earthquake made Nepal very lucky in a way -- it was just before noon, I think, and the vast majority of people were outside. If it had happened in the middle of the night, there would have been far more casualties.

As for foreigners, they've counted 3 dead French so far...

[htmb]

It's hard to even fathom the number of casualties, as it is.