DHAKA, Bangladesh: A strong, 5.5 magnitude earthquake shook central Bangladesh on Friday, killing at least eight people and leaving more than 300 injured, authorities and local media said. Buildings in the country’s capital, Dhaka, swayed in the temblor, sending panicked residents into the streets.
The quake hit at 10:38 a.m., with the epicenter in the Ghorashal area in Narsingdi district, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from Dhaka. The U.S. Geological Survey said that it had a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles).
Dhaka-based DBC Television said two children were among the dead. The fatalities occurred mostly from collapsed roofs and walls. A building’s railings fell and killed three people on a Dhaka street.
The three were shopping at a butcher’s shop in Armanitola, an area of Dhaka’s old city, and were taken to a hospital where they were pronounced dead, Prothom Alo newspaper said.
Local resident Mohammed Arif said he came out when he heard a loud noise and “saw that some bricks had fallen, and I saw some people injured also.”
The Fire Service and Civil Defense department deployed firefighters to locations where people reported tilting buildings, as well as to a fire in Dhaka’s Baridhara neighborhood.
The country’s leading Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily said 252 people, mostly garment workers, were hospitalized in the Gazipur district, just outside Dhaka. The area has hundreds of garment factories and other industrial facilities.
The workers tried to rush out of their factories when the quake hit, setting off stampedes that left many hurt, the daily said.
Television stations broadcast footage of worried and crying relatives as the victims were brought to medical facilities, including at the state-run Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Dhaka University students jumped from the upper floors of their dorms during the quake.
According to the USGS, though northern and southeastern Bangladesh are seismically active regions because of interactions between the India and Eurasia plates, the central region of the country is less active.
The USGS says that since 1950, only 14 earthquakes — with a magnitude of 5.5 and including two magnitude 6 quakes — have occurred within a 250 kilometers (156 miles) radius of Friday’s earthquake.
Experts warn that Bangladesh, a country of 170 million people, is less prepared for higher-magnitude quakes which could cause a lot of destruction. The capital city, which has about 2.1 million buildings, is particularly at higher risk.