BIYASI, India -- Rescue workers were trying Tuesday to reach isolated villages crushed by a powerful earthquake in India's lower Himalayas that killed at least 110 people, with many more dead expected.
In Chamoli, the devastated town near the epicenter, residents and army engineers pulled survivors and corpses from under collapsed homes and shops. Soldiers were breaking up concrete slabs with power tools, while townspeople dug with shovels and their bare hands, said Manohar Srivastav, a college student reached by telephone. He could not say how many people had been rescued.Air Force rescue planes scoured the Himalayan expanse late Monday to survey the devastation and possible access routes to villages after relief trucks were blocked by landslides. Some 14 villages were destroyed and about 90 percent of Chamoli was damaged by the quake, which measured magnitude 6.8, said Shridhar Pathak, Chamoli's senior police officer.
Dilip Kotia, a senior official in the Uttar Pradesh state government, said the death toll of 110 was expected to rise. Many were killed as they lay in bed or were watching television when the quake struck just after midnight in the early hours Monday. Another two died in a house that collapsed in the state of Punjab.
A dozen tent camps have been set up in Chamoli, and water and power supplies were disrupted for a second day. Helicopters evacuated the most serious of the injured from isolated areas.
Hundreds were injured in the 40-second jolt, said officials in the small town of Biyasi. The area is about 185 miles north of New Delhi, where some buildings also suffered cracks and damage.
"For a minute, all the earth seemed shaking . . . we all ran out of our houses very, very scared," said Himanshu Thapliyal, a 28-year-old lawyer in Biyasi.