A strong earthquake of magnitude 7.9 hit Nepal. The earthquake, with its epicenter halfway between Kathmandu and the city of Pokhara, the strongest in the country in the last 81 years, has caused many victims and serious damage to buildings in the capital, where some buildings collapsed. But there are more than 1,500 victims in the country, reports the Times of India. The Nepalese government has declared a state of emergency in the affected areas and appealed to the international community to provide the humanitarian aid needed to cope with the situation.
The earthquake was felt until New Delhi, even in India there are deaths (more than 40), as well as in Bangladesh (4 victims). “We fear hundreds of deaths,” diplomatic sources say. “We are looking for more information and working to reach those affected, both in India and in Nepal,” Prime Minister Narenda Modi wrote on Twitter. The Indian Prime Minister has also convened a high-level emergency meeting of ministers and senior officials. “Right now we need especially field hospitals and mobile units to treat the wounded,” warned Deep Kumar Upadhyay, Nepal’s ambassador to New Delhi. There are also 16 dead and several wounded Chinese. The news was confirmed by the Chinese state television, CCTV
For the moment there are no Italian victims. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “checks are underway which, for technical reasons, take time. At the moment, however, the involvement of Italians has not emerged”, report sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Reopened the airport. Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport was damaged and closed for a few hours. Then it was reopened. The authorities urge the population not to use telephone lines, to avoid clogging them.
Avalanche on Everest. The earthquake in Nepal has also caused avalanches on Everest that have hit base camps 1 and 2. According to what emerges from Twitter messages coming from the base camp and collected by the Indian television CNN-Ibn, eighteen foreign mountaineers have died in the area. “It is a huge disaster. I have helped in the search and rescue of victims in a vast disaster area. There are many deaths, many others seriously injured. Others will die if a helicopter does not arrive as soon as possible,” wrote a Romanian alpinist, Alex Gavan, located at Everest base camp.

The Dharahara tower is devastated. The Dharahara tower, one of the most important monuments of Kathmandu, UNESCO’s heritage, has collapsed. Rescuers extracted 250 corpses. The tower, also known as the Bhimsen Tower, was nine stories high and was almost 62 meters high.
n these days there are many Nepalese climbers and sherpas on the site. Many are missing, Indian media and witnesses report on the spot, speaking of serious damage. “Many mountaineers were surprised by the earthquake and the avalanches while they were engaged in a climb,” said the Romanian mountaineer. Among the victims, confirmed in the evening the death of a senior Google executive, Dan Fredinburg. He took care of privacy.

According to Javier Camacho Gimenez, a Spanish mountaineer and photographer who along with a fellow countryman, Ricardo Fernandez, was at the base camp to try to climb to the top of the Lhotse without oxygen aid or Nepalese sherpas, several mountaineers died and a significant number of people he was injured. The earthquake surprised them at the base camp and caused an avalanche from the small Pumori who buried some camps, in which there were mainly Chinese and Japanese
On the social media news of the fall of stones, ice and new avalanches bounced while in the area it continues to snow. The Italian Annalisa Fioretti, at the Everest base camp for the ascent to Lhotse together with her colleague Mario Vielmo, reported that the Italians of the expedition are all well. The well-known Tyrolean mountaineer Andy Holzer, who is currently preparing the ascent of Everest, is in safety. “Andy and his team are doing well. They are currently at the advanced base camp and have felt the earth shake,” says the climber’s wife, Sabine Holzer.

April is one of the months when most Everest expeditions start. Just last year, an avalanche had swept and killed 14 Nepalese guides. In Kathmandu, Giampaolo Corona, a mountain guide from Trentino, and Francois Cazzanelli, a mountain guide from the Army Sports Center, had to arrive just yesterday from Italy at Kimshung, a mountain of 6,700 meters never climbed before. Corona reassured: “We’re fine. Fermi at Muscat airport in Oman waiting for more information”.

Technicians from the Piramide laboratory are doing well. “Nepalese technicians are all working well in the Piramide laboratory”. This is confirmed by Pietro Coeretta, spokesman and media manager of EvK2Cnr in constant contact, since the earthquake, with the center at 5050 meters on the Nepalese side of Everest. Nepalese technicians who work in the workshop, he adds, “are experts who often work side by side with Italian scientists”. The Pyramid Laboratory-Observatory is managed by the EvK2Cnr Association led by Agostino Da Polenza and operates in accordance with the strategies and commitments of the Italian National Research Council. The Piramide laboratory has become a jewel universally recognized and appreciated for research and study at high altitude, a constant presence in the mountainous areas of the Hindu Kush-Karakorum-Himalaya, in Nepal, Pakistan, Tibet, India and Bhutan. In the Pyramid laboratory, research is carried out on earth, environmental, medical and physiological sciences,

Oxfam: “Water and electricity are lacking”. “Communication is currently difficult, telephone lines do not work and the lack of electricity does not allow us to recharge mobile phones”, is the dramatic testimony of Cecilia Keizer, director of Oxfam in Nepal, a few hours after the devastating earthquake that struck the country. “There is no water. The number of victims continues to increase, many old houses have collapsed but the earthquake has not spared more modern buildings,” he said. Oxfam has taken action to help the population with the distribution of water and food.

Google launches ‘Person finder’ service to find missing. Google has launched its Person Finder service to help track down missing people. Users can go to the service’s website and share or search for information on people who are missing, creating a sort of database with names.

Warning from a distance. The earthquake was also felt in Tibet in the cities of Lhasa and Shigatse. The dead are 11. Several homes have collapsed in the Kyirong district and communications along the border between China and Nepal have been interrupted.
The Pope’s condolences. Pope Francis, informed of the devastating earthquake that hit Nepal today, with hundreds of victims, “is following the evolution of the situation in prayer and with great concern, participating in the suffering of those who have been affected”, reports Vatican Radio.
France is ready to provide assistance in relief efforts in Nepal guaranteed the French president, François Hollande, in a note released by the Elysee. Hollande expressed solidarity with those affected and with the government of Nepal. Italy also expresses solidarity with Nepal: Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has expressed sympathy and solidarity with the people affected by the earthquake and the government of Nepal. The Foreign Minister, Paolo Gentiloni, immediately placed emergency aid for an amount of 300,000 euros on funds from the Cooperation.

Nepal and India had already been the scene of a devastating earthquake on January 15, 1934, when a magnitude 8 earthquake devastated the cities of Kathmandu, Munger and Muzaffarpur, with more than 11,000 dead, and the Indian state of Bihar, where lost over 7,000 lives.