At least 15 people were killed in a 6.8-magnitude earthquake that shook north-eastern India and neighbouring Nepal and Bangladesh on Sunday, dpa reported. According to the US Geological Survey, the epicentre was 68 kilometres north-west of Gangtok, the capital of the Indian state of Sikkim, in the eastern Himalayan range, at a depth of about 7.4 kilometres. Ten people were killed in India and five in Nepal, local media reported. Scores of people were injured, mostly by falling debris as walls and roofs of buildings collapsed, Times Now news channel reported. Sikkim chief secretary Karma Yatzo was quoted as saying the extent of the damage would be known only in the morning, once there was daylight. India's federal government had dispatched Air Force aircraft with disaster management personnel and equipment to Sikkim, federal cabinet secretary Ajit Kumar Sethi said. Five people had died in Sikkim from falling debris, while one person was killed when his car went off a hill road, Yatzo said. Two people had died in northern Bihar state, while three were killed in northern West Bengal, NDTV India news channel and IANS news agency reported. In Nepal, at least three of the victims were killed in the capital, Kathmandu, when a wall of the British Embassy collapsed, according to Kantipur Television channel. Two were reported dead in the eastern district of Sunsari. Three aftershocks measuring 4.6 and 5.7 in magnitude were reported by India's Meteorological Department. According to witnesses in Bangladesh, the earthquake lasted more than 25 seconds, prompting people in densely populated Dhaka, nearly 450 kilometres away from the epicentre, to leave their homes in panic.
