Toll in Himalaya quake climbs to 111, dozens still missing

Sep 22, 2011, 12:40 GMT

New Delhi - The death toll from a powerful Himalayan earthquake rose to 111 on Thursday, as remote villages remained cut off by landslides triggered by heavy rains, officials said.

At least 75 people were killed in the north-eastern Indian state of Sikkim, the epicentre of Sunday's 6.8-magnitude quake, which has suffered losses and damage worth 1 trillion rupees (20.5 billion dollars).

A further 19 were reported killed in other Indian states, while nine had died in Nepal, seven in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China and one person in Bhutan.

Rescue and relief operations in the mountainous region have been hampered by heavy rains and landslides over the past four days, said government spokesman KS Topgay.

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

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

Also missing were 40 workers of the Teesta Urja Company, a hydroelectric power plant in the region, the newspaper reported.

About 400 people were still stuck in some villages located in the interior areas of Sikkim state, according to IANS news agency.

'The roads up north beyond the epicentre region of Mangan are still inaccessible,' Topgay said. 'The death toll is likely to increase, but not drastically, since the areas are sparsely populated.'

The NDTV network reported that the military had airlifted ten South African tourists from the region in operations since Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Chidambaram took stock of the relief missions and announced that Sikkim state would receive 500 million rupees in federal assistance.

More than a dozen helicopters used air drops to deliver food, including rice, as well as relief materials to affected areas within Sikkim. At least 5,000 people have been moved to government camps.

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