At least three people, including two women, were killed and 60 others injured on Saturday when hundreds rushed out of their workplaces and houses in panic after an earthquake measuring 7.9 on Richter scale struck neighbouring Nepal and tremors were felt across Bangladesh. Rokeya Khanam, 50, said to be a leader of ruling Awami league’s women unit, hit a concrete wall hard while fleeing a school committee meeting in northwestern Pabna, private TV channels and witnesses said. “She suddenly fell down from the chair as the tremors jolted the scene... The doctors declared her dead as she was rushed to the hospital,” media reports quoted witnesses of the school in Pabna as saying.
The second victim is a readymade garments factory worker who was crushed to death in a stampede while several hundred panic-stricken workers of the unit tried to flee as the tremors were felt in their 10-storey building. A 25-year-old woman also died following the quake tremors.At least 50 people were being treated at a nearly hospital following the stampede in Savar area. In northern Mymensingh, at least eight students of a primary school were injured in another stampede while rushing out of their two-storey school building.