Rescuers reach last quake-hit villages in India, toll reaches 114

Sep 23, 2011, 13:30 GMT

New Delhi - Rescue teams have reached remote Indian villages cut-off by a powerful Himalayan earthquake that claimed 114 lives, officials said Friday.

Access to 10 villages had been blocked due to landslides and heavy rains in India's north-eastern state of Sikkim, the epicentre of Sunday's 6.8-magnitude quake.

'Three more bodies were found from the rubble in the worst-hit north district Friday, raising the total number of deaths in Sikkim to 78,' said police officer MK Chhetri in the state capital Gangtok.

A further 19 were reported dead in other Indian states, as well as nine deaths in Nepal, seven in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China and one death in Bhutan.

'Rescue workers have now reached most of the villages that had been inaccessible since the quake on Sunday,' said government spokesman KS Topgay.

In areas that remained blocked by landslides, troops used helicopters, 'to evacuate casualties and provide medical help to injured,' he added.

From Thursday evening, 40 helicopter sorties were conducted to the villages, but the operations had to be reduced later Friday due to inclement weather, the official said.

'There is no marked increase in the number of casualties. The death toll is stabilizing, so we hope that the worst part of the disaster is over,' he said.

The focus will gradually turn towards the rehabilitation of victims and the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure, including bridges and roads.

Teams of doctors were also deployed in the town of Mangan - located in the area hardest hit by the earthquake - as well as Gangtok.

Fifteen helicopters were being used to deliver food, including rice, as well as relief materials to affected areas within Sikkim. At least 5,000 people were being sheltered in 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.