KATHMANDU, Nepal — Still reeling from last month’s devastating earthquake, Nepal was hammered again Tuesday by a magnitude 7.3 temblor that caused dozens more deaths, unleashed fresh landslides and brought down unsteady buildings.
By late afternoon, Nepal’s Home Affairs Ministry said at least 42 people were killed and more than 1,117 injured in the largest aftershock yet recorded from the 7.8 quake on April 25. Officials warned that the toll could rise.
Separately, the U.S. military reported that a Marine helicopter from a unit based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., had gone missing Tuesday while on a humanitarian mission in the Charikot area of Nepal.
The helicopter, a UH-1Y Huey, was carrying two Nepalese soldiers and six Marines, said Army Maj. Dave Eastburn, a Pacific Command spokesman. Nepalese troops were searching for the aircraft on foot but an aerial search was suspended because of darkness and will resume at dawn Wednesday, he said.
The aircraft belonged to Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469 based at Camp Pendleton.
The epicenter for Tuesday’s quake was nearly 50 miles northeast of the capital, Kathmandu, near the Chinese border, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The April quake, which killed more than 8,150 people, was centered in the mountains west of Kathmandu.
The temblor struck just before 1 p.m., sending residents of the capital scurrying into the open air for safety, and was followed by a series of smaller aftershocks that further rattled nerves.
Within hours, new makeshift tents had begun popping up in parts of Kathmandu as survivors of last month’s quake who had returned to their homes in recent days decided again that they were safer sleeping outdoors.
The Home Affairs Ministry said nine people were pulled out alive from damaged buildings in the remote Dolakha district, close to the quake’s epicenter near Mount Everest, and three from structures in Kathmandu.
A U.S. search-and-rescue team was seen leaving its hotel in central Kathmandu a few hours after the quake and was believed to be headed for Dolakha. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Katmandu said three U.S. military aircraft were taking 20 U.S. personnel, including 18 urban search-and-rescue team members, “to conduct initial assessments in Charikot,” the seat of Dolakha district. It was not immediately clear whether the missing Marine helicopter was among them.
The search teams, including firefighters from Los Angeles County and Fairfax County, Va., who deployed after the April quake, had been scheduled to leave Nepal on Monday but have delayed their departure and were responding to Tuesday’s temblor under the direction of Nepalese authorities, U.S. officials said.
Using Osprey aircraft, which can take off and land vertically, the U.S. teams and Nepalese army personnel evacuated at least 16 injured people from Charikot to Kathmandu on Tuesday, the embassy said.
Embassy officials said they had no immediate reports of U.S. casualties.
At least 30 of the country’s 75 administrative districts were affected, according to state-run Radio Nepal. The quake caused the temporary closure of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, the hub for relief operations, and was felt as far away as New Delhi, about 500 miles west of Kathmandu.
At least four were killed in Chautara, the seat of Sindhupalchowk district, said Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, citing reports from colleagues there. Last month’s quake damaged or destroyed about 90 percent of the buildings in the town of about 6,000, which is built on a rugged ridge line.
Landslides were reported in parts of Sindhupalchowk, which suffered the greatest number of casualties in last month’s quake. It was not immediately clear whether the landslides caused new casualties.
In central Katmandu’s Durbar Square, which was all but leveled in the April quake, debris tumbled to the ground from the damaged hulk of a nine-story palace. Residents of the capital ran into the streets to escape damaged buildings and crammed into city buses in an apparent effort to get home.
Amulya Tamrakar, 31, rushed to his son’s school in central Kathmandu, and the two were taking shelter at the Yak and Yeti Hotel. It was the first day he had sent his son to school since April 25.
“Just when we thought things were getting normal, today’s earthquake has again raised fear and panic among us,” Tamrakar said. “Thank God my son and family are OK.”