More than 150 people are dead and hundreds more are injured after an earthquake struck Nepal early Saturday morning.
The temblor occurred around midnight local time in the western region of Karnali Province, located about 250 miles from the Nepalese capital city of Kathmandu. The shake registered as a magnitude-5.6 earthquake according to the U.S. Geological Survey. However, Nepal's National Earthquake Monitoring and Research Center registered it significantly stronger at a magnitude of 6.4. A number of powerful aftershocks also struck the region throughout the early morning.
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Nepalese media reports cited by USA Today said that many people died "after being crushed by debris when their homes crumbled." The majority of homes in the region are built by stacking rocks and heavy logs on top of each other. Mudslides and debris also blocked the roads into many rural towns that are now cut off from aid. Rescue workers are working to access these areas using helicopters.
Nepal lies in a highly tectonic region, and earthquakes in the country remain very common. In 2015, a 7.8-magnitude temblor killed around 9,000 people and destroyed more than a million buildings.
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