A powerful earthquake struck Nepal and sent tremors through northern India on Saturday,
killing more than 1,300 people, touching off a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest and toppling a 19th-century tower in the capital Kathmandu.
There were reports of devastation in outlying, isolated mountainous areas after the midday quake of magnitude 7.9,
Nepal's worst in 81 years, centred 50 miles (80 km) east of the second city, Pokhara.
As fears grew of a humanitarian disaster in the impoverished Himalayan nation of 28 million, an overwhelmed government appealed for foreign help. India was first to respond by sending in military aircraft with medical equipment and relief teams.
A police spokesman said the death toll in Nepal alone had reached 1,341, about half of them in the Kathmandu Valley. A further 36 fatalities were reported in northern India, 12 in Chinese Tibet and four in Bangladesh.
The quake was more destructive for being shallow, toppling buildings, opening gaping cracks in roads and sending people scurrying into the open as aftershocks rattled their damaged homes.
Thousands prepared to spend the night outside, setting up makeshift tents, sitting around campfires and eating food
provided by volunteers.
Reuters
