Indian toll in Himalaya quake climbs to 76, dozens still missing

Sep 22, 2011, 8:16 GMT

New Delhi - Rescuers found eight more bodies in the debris of India's quake-hit north-eastern state of Sikkim, taking the toll in the area to 76, an official said Thursday.

Losses and damage worth 1 trillion rupees (20.5 billion dollars) had been caused in the state, the epicentre of Sunday's 6.8-magnitude quake.

Rescue and relief operations over the past four days have been hampered by heavy rains and landslides, said government spokesman Topgay Bhutia said by telephone.

A total of 112 people have perished in the disaster, with 19 reported killed in the rest of India, nine dead in Nepal, seven in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China and one person in Bhutan.

Federal Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, who visited victims in Sikkim, said access to 10 villages was still blocked by landslides.

According to an aerial survey by the army, five villages in northern Sikkim hace been razed with no survivors spotted in the area, the Times of India daily reported.

Forty workers of the Teesta Urja Company, a hydroelectric power plant in the region, were also missing, the report said.

At least 5,000 people have been moved to camps set up by the government across the state, local reports said.

Sikkim is located in the eastern belt of the seismically unstable Himalayan region. About 74,000 people died across the region of Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan, during the last major earthquake in 2005.