Quake kills ten in Bhutan: report

By Zareer Hussain (AFP) – 14 hours ago

GUWAHATI, India — A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan Monday, killing at least ten people and damaging monasteries and other buildings, state-run media reported.
"Ten people were killed of which three victims are of Indian origin," Bhutan Broadcasting Service, the country's national radio reported Monday night.
The three Indians died after they were hit by falling boulders in the eastern district of Samdrup Jongkhar and their bodies have been handed over to Indian authorities in Bhutan.
Seven people died after buildings collapsed in two regions east of the capital Thimpu, an official at the government's disaster management unit said.
Bhutan's home minister Lyonpo Minjur Dorji said officials are coordinating with the district authorities to help those affected.
According to the US Geological Survey, which initially put the quake at 6.3-magnitude before revising down, the epicentre was located just inside Bhutan's border with India, 180 kilometres (115 miles) east of Thimpu, at a shallow depth of 7.2 kilometres.
Dorji said three people were injured in Munggar and some buildings had caved in, most of which were made of mud and stone.
The quake sent boulders down hillsides in eastern Bhutan, blocking roads to remote, hilly regions, he added. Homes and monasteries were also damaged.
"There are reports of landslides in some areas and power and telecommunications networks have been disrupted in eastern districts of Bhutan," Dorji said.
The Bhutanese newspaper Kuensel reported online that monasteries and other buildings had been damaged in Munggar.
Sherab Tenzin, district magistrate of Munggar, told AFP by telephone shortly after the quake struck that many of the mud and stone buildings in the area showed signs of damage, but there was no widespread destruction.
Teams of police and rescue personnel were moving out across the region to assess the damage, he said.
The tremors were also felt in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka and in Lhasa, the capital of the Chinese region of Tibet, according to Chinese state media.
Strong tremors lasting up to 20 seconds were felt 125 kilometres away in Guwahati, the capital of India's northeastern state of Assam, where nervous residents ran into the streets.
Cracks appeared in several buildings in the city but there was no serious damage, witnesses said.
Home to just over 600,000 people and wedged in remote hills and mountains between India and China, Bhutan held its first democratic elections for a new parliament and prime minister in March last year.
The country had no roads or currency until the 1960s and allowed television only in 1999. It also famously uses the principle of 'Gross National Happiness', and not common economic indicators, to measure national well-being.
Most of its largely Buddhist population live by subsistence farming, animal husbandry and forestry.