At least 157 dead in Nepal earthquake, rescue still on

Poor quality of construction and the midnight timing of the quake resulted in a high death toll and heavy damage

Rescue workers in Nepal began digging through the rubble of collapsed houses with their bare hands on Saturday, searching for survivors after the country's worst earthquake in eight years killed 157 people and shook buildings as far away as New Delhi.

The quake struck the Jajarkot region in the west of the Himalayan nation at 11:47pm on Friday with a 6.4 magnitude, Nepal's National Seismological Centre said. The German Research Centre for Geosciences measured it at 5.7 and the U.S. Geological Survey at 5.6.

Officials fear the death toll could rise as first responders had reached the hilly area near the epicentre, some 500km west of the capital Kathmandu, only early on Saturday and began searching for survivors.

"The number of injured could be in the hundreds and the deaths could go up as well," Jajarkot district official Harish Chandra Sharma told Reuters by phone.

Although the quake's magnitude was not severe, the damage and the death toll are high due to the poor quality of construction in the area and because it struck while people slept, officials said.

"It came when we were sleeping," Kamala Oli, a woman cradling her infant child at a hospital treating survivors, told AFP.

"There were three of us in the house. Only two of us lived," she added, without giving further details.