Nepal on Sunday was left reeling in shock a day after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake caused widespread destruction across the Himalayan nation and claimed over 3,617 thus far. More than 6,500 people have been injured, according to the National Emergency Operation Centre. Several climbers were killed when the earthquake caused a massive avalanche around Mount Everest. More than 200 climbers have been rescued.
The earthquake reduced whole neighborhoods to rubble and sent deadly tremors throughout the region, including in Pakistan, India, Tibet and Bangladesh. Rescuers were unable to reach remote Nepali villages near the quake's epicenter, and aid agencies warned the full extent of death and destruction was just beginning to emerge. As strong aftershocks shook Nepal for a second day, the country's hospitals were overflowing with the dead and wounded. Search teams continued to scour the wreckage for survivors, and hundreds of victims were laid to rest in traditional cremation ceremonies. Grieving relatives flooded the famed Hindu Pashupatinath Temple on the outskirts of the capital Kathmandu to take part in mass funerals.
Such a powerful quake would result in destruction anywhere, but in a nation as poverty-stricken as Nepal, its citizens are particularly vulnerable. Aid groups worldwide have mobilized to help. Click here to look at humanitarian efforts underway and links that allow you to donate online.
A ball of fire is seen following an early morning Israeli air strike, July 11, 2014, on Rafah in the southern of Gaza strip. (Photo credit: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images)
Israeli tanks rolled into the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday night and naval gunboats pounded targets in the south as Israel began a ground invasion after 10 days of aerial bombardment failed to stop Palestinian militants from showering Israeli cities with rockets.
Israeli leaders said the incursion was a limited one focused on tunnels into its territory like the one used for a predawn attack Thursday that was thwarted. They said it was not intended to topple Hamas, the militant Islamist movement, from its longtime rule of Gaza.
As rockets continued to rain down on Israeli cities, a military spokesman said the mission’s expansion was “not time bound” and was aimed to ensure Hamas operatives were “pursued, paralyzed and threatened” as it targeted “terrorist infrastructure” in the north, south and east of Gaza “in parallel.”
As midnight approached Thursday, residents of some sparsely populated farmland in northern Gaza were cowering in their homes, afraid to answer mobile phones or peek out windows. Some sent text messages reporting that they could hear tank shelling, heavy artillery, and F-16s dropping bombs. Moussa al-Ghoul, 63, who lives northwest of Beit Lahiya, said his neighborhood had turned into “a war zone” with tanks surrounding his home, having destroyed those of two of his sons. He said shells were landing “everywhere.”
Gaza news outlets reported that electricity had been cut to 80 percent of the coastal territory after cables bringing power from Israel were damaged.
After the early-morning tunnel episode, the day settled into an extended calm as both sides observed a United Nations request for a five-hour humanitarian pause in the fighting. But by 3 p.m., the violence roared back as the Palestinian death toll neared 250 and more than 120 rockets rained on cities throughout southern and central Israel all afternoon and evening.
Israel began to call up 18,000 reservists, adding to 50,000 already mobilized in recent days; Colonel Lerner said the ground forces would include infantry and artillery units, armored and engineer corps, supported by Israel’s “vast intelligence capabilities,” air force and navy.
Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, called the invasion “a dangerous step.”
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