"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. Officials said 99 people were killed in Jajarkot and 38 in neighbouring Rukum West district, both in Karnali province. At least 85 people were injured in Rukum West and 55 in Jajarkot, an official in the prime minister's office said. Thousands of residents spent the entire night in cold, open grounds because they were too scared to go in into the cracked houses as aftershocks struck," Sharma said. Local TV channels showed rescuers digging through the rubble with their bare hands looking for survivors in the debris of collapsed houses.

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Persons: Gopal Sharma, Harish Chandra Sharma, Sharma, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Krishna Bhandari, Narendra Modi, Saurabh Sharma, YP Rajesh, William Mallard Organizations: Seismological, German Research Centre, Geosciences, U.S . Geological, Reuters, Authorities, Indian, YP Locations: Gopal Sharma KATHMANDU, Nepal, New Delhi, Kathmandu, Jajarkot, Rukum West, Karnali province, Ramidanda, Surkhet, Chaurjahari, Rukum, India, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, LUCKNOW