In Katmandu News Today

To recover the helicopters and see perhaps what happened. thank you so much for your reporting, will whitley live for us there in katmandu. thanks, will. chinas premier wants political trust with a fairer international order. the premier and indias prime minister just wrapped a news conference in beijing, they are teaming up on a number of fronts to grow their economies. china recently invested heavily in indias rival pakistan and that caused tensioned between india and china. and this trip is...

Deliveries which have been disrupted by naval blockades but in a possible sign of de-escalation, u.s. officials say a convie of iranian ships are now moving away to make sure iran wasnt delivering weapons to houthi rebels inside yemen. we want to go back to our top story that were following. this 7.9 magnitude earthquake in nepal. lets go to our journalist manesh shrestha who joins us from katmandu. manesh, weve been following your reporting. we heard what you had to say from your conversation...

What are you seeing from your vantage point? >> reporter: thank you. more than a good day for nepal and katmandu, massive destruction, the extent is difficult to imagine. three hours after the event. even as i talk to you, a slight tremor here, more than 15 iconic, 200-years old craft, a very famous dharahara square damaged. in my locality, people are still out in the open. and the city seems to be taken over somewhat of a dust storm over buildings that have crashed. there is panic in the city. ...

Ongoing for the next several days if not weeks and months. you can see panic and whateveric on the streets of nepal. earthquake safety, anybody paying attention, we do have seismic activity for the next several hours. get away from infrastructures, theyre weakened at this stage. if you do not have that opportunity, get underneath a solid surface like a desk or chair. search and recovery, thats a major effort going forward. we do have a wet forecast for katmandu, capital nepal. weve had reports, ...

About the extent of the damage. and the state-run radio informs the people that the danger is not over yet. because even as i speak now, i can feel slight tremors. there have been tremors that have been going on, you know, for the last three hours on and off. and people are still not inside their house. people are still sitting outside in open spaces because theyre too afraid to go in and the government has not given a green signal that the danger is over. >> cnns manesh shrestha on the phone wi...

Magnitude earthquake of 7 or 7.9 about 15 a year. if this gets reassigned to the usgs 8 or higher that would be something that does not occur on a typical annual average. this is what is called a shake map. i want to show you just where we are. this is the himalayas. inda, nepal. katmandu, the capital of nepal. and the epicenter, just about 81 kilometers north and west. this yellow line here, this is depicting the area where we saw the most intense shaking of this earthquake. and im also going t...

Kilometers also very disconcerting as well. just because its such a shallow earthquake, it leads to the possibility of extensive damage spreading out in all directions from the particular epicenter. if it was deeper there would be more krounts, the epicenter of this of, the 7.9 that im discussing. the original earthquake took place about 81 kilometers northwest of katmandu, this is obviously the capital of nepal. so lets try and put this in perspective for you at home so you can understand just ...

Collapseded and reports of people under those buildings. you have seen that as well? >> reporter: well i was at a hospital. i saw in the hospital, people covered with dust. dead people covered with dust, and that is because they were inside a building when this -- when the earthquake -- when this earthquake happened. and thats why they died. and it is not surprising that all of these buildings have collapsed. and that is because there are centuries old buildings in the cities of katmandu. and th...

Kathmandu. its an historic landmark. it collapsed. and there was a viewing tower about eight floors above. theres still unconfirmed reports of people here trapped in this rubble. it just goes to show you, some of these older buildings, old structures have crumbled underneath the strength of this brute force. this 7.9. heres the latest from the u.s. good survey. epicent epicenter, 81 kilometers northwest. if it was deeper wed have more ground, more earth to absorb the shock waves. unfortunately, ...

And that can oftentimes, more often than not, result in significant damage. in fact, the class in tellers of the earthquake intensity, this was considered already a major, major earthquake from the u.s. geological survey if it was reassessed to be an 8 or higher on the richter scale, that would be considered a great earthquake. something that only happens about one time a year. unfortunately, this has happened in a very populated part of the world. and the pictures that are streaming in on socia...