New Powerful Earthquake Hits Devastated Nepal

Police said at least 13 people had been killed in the new quake, which the USGS initially reported as magnitude 7.1, before later upgrading it to magnitude 7.3.

The quake, which struck 18km southeast of Kodari, near the base camp for Mt Everest, was measured at a shallow depth of about 18km. A series of aftershocks - including one 6.3 magnitude tremor - later hit in the same area, the USGS reported.

A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration said four people were killed in Chautara, Nepal, after the earthquake destroyed several buildings there.

"The situation in Chautara is that several buildings in the town have collapsed," spokesman Paul Dillon told the Reuters news agency by telephone from Kathmandu. "There are four fatalities."

Emergency officials told Al Jazeera that three people had been killed in Kathmandu, three had been killed in Sindhupalchowk district, five were killed in Dolakha district and one person died in both Sarlahi and Dhanausha districts.

At least 300 people injured in the Kathmandu Valley, police said, and at least four buildings are believed to have collapsed in the east of Kathmandu.

Police issued a public warning, calling for people to stay in open areas and to send text messages instead of making calls, to prevent the network from becoming jammed.

Al Jazeera's Annette Ekin, reporting from Kathmandu, said that there was "utter panic" in the capital following the quake.

"The earth just started rolling. Everyone ran out onto the streets and all of the shops are now shuttered," she said, adding that the quake seemed to last about 30 seconds.

A woman who works for a finance company in Thamel, in Kathmandu, told Al Jazeera that she had clung on to a pillar inside her building when the quake struck.

"I was screaming. It felt like the house was falling," she said.

Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons, also reporting from Kathmandu, said the quake was so powerful that it made the building he was in "feel like jelly".