DHAKA: A low-magnitude tremor hit Bangladesh on Saturday, the national meteorological service said, a day after a powerful earthquake struck outside the capital Dhaka and killed at least 10 people.
Updating earlier tolls from Friday’s 5.5-magnitude quake, disaster management official Ishtiaqe Ahmed said that “the number of casualties has reached 10, while a few hundreds were injured.”
The first earthquake was felt in Dhaka and neighboring districts, causing widespread destruction.
Omar Faruq of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department said another minor jolt was recorded on Saturday at 10:36 a.m. (0436 GMT).
The epicenter of the 3.3-magnitude tremor was in Ashulia, just north of the capital, the meteorologist said.
Aftershocks such as this are common after major earthquakes, but for some in Bangladesh it has added to fears of an even greater disaster.
“I don’t feel safe yet, as there was another jolt this morning in Ashulia. Maybe we are next,” said Shahnaj Parvin.
The 44-year-old, who lives near the epicenter of Friday’s earthquake, said she had never experienced such a tremor.
Cracks have developed in dozens of houses in her area, she said.
“I was hanging my children’s clothes on the washing line when the tremor struck,” added Parvin.
“I held onto a mahogany tree, and when I returned home, I found my glassware broken.”
The government has activated Bangladesh’s emergency operation center to assess the scale of the damage and to coordinate relief and rescue operations.
Rubayet Kabir of the Meteorological Department’s Earthquake Observation and Research Center said that Bangladesh’s geography makes the country of 170 million people prone to quakes.
“That’s why we experience earthquakes quite frequently, though they are not as strong as the one” on Friday, he said.
“Some small tremors are expected after any major earthquake,” Kabir said.
“There has been no massive earthquake in the last 100 years or more, but Bangladesh has been vulnerable for quite some time.”
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Aftershock rocks Bangladesh as quake death toll rises to 10
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Aftershock rocks Bangladesh as quake death toll rises to 10
- The first earthquake was felt in Dhaka and neighboring districts, causing widespread destruction
- The epicenter of the 3.3-magnitude tremor was in Ashulia, just north of the capital
The last US-Russia nuclear pact expires, prompting fears of a new arms race
MOSCOW: The last remaining nuclear arms pact between Russia and the United States expired Thursday, removing any caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century.
The termination of the New START Treaty could set the stage for what many fear could be an unconstrained nuclear arms race.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year declared readiness to stick to the treaty’s limits for another year if Washington follows suit, but US President Donald Trump has been noncommittal about extending it.
Putin discussed the pact’s expiration with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday, Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said, noting Washington hasn’t responded to his proposed extension.
Russia “will act in a balanced and responsible manner based on thorough analysis of the security situation,” Ushakov said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday night said in a statement that “under the current circumstances, we assume that the parties to the New START Treaty are no longer bound by any obligations or symmetrical declarations within the context of the Treaty, including its core provisions, and are fundamentally free to choose their next steps.”
New START, signed in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, restricted each side to no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads on no more than 700 missiles and bombers — deployed and ready for use. It was originally supposed to expire in 2021 but was extended for five more years.
The pact envisioned sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance, although they stopped in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never resumed.
In February 2023, Putin suspended Moscow’s participation, saying Russia couldn’t allow US inspections of its nuclear sites at a time when Washington and its NATO allies have openly declared Moscow’s defeat in Ukraine as their goal. At the same time, the Kremlin emphasized it wasn’t withdrawing from the pact altogether, pledging to respect its caps on nuclear weapons.
In offering in September to abide by New START’s limits for a year to buy time for both sides to negotiate a successor agreement, Putin said the pact’s expiration would be destabilizing and could fuel nuclear proliferation.
New START followed a long succession of US-Russian nuclear arms reduction pacts. Those have been terminated, as well.
The termination of the New START Treaty could set the stage for what many fear could be an unconstrained nuclear arms race.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year declared readiness to stick to the treaty’s limits for another year if Washington follows suit, but US President Donald Trump has been noncommittal about extending it.
Putin discussed the pact’s expiration with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday, Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said, noting Washington hasn’t responded to his proposed extension.
Russia “will act in a balanced and responsible manner based on thorough analysis of the security situation,” Ushakov said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday night said in a statement that “under the current circumstances, we assume that the parties to the New START Treaty are no longer bound by any obligations or symmetrical declarations within the context of the Treaty, including its core provisions, and are fundamentally free to choose their next steps.”
New START, signed in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, restricted each side to no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads on no more than 700 missiles and bombers — deployed and ready for use. It was originally supposed to expire in 2021 but was extended for five more years.
The pact envisioned sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance, although they stopped in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never resumed.
In February 2023, Putin suspended Moscow’s participation, saying Russia couldn’t allow US inspections of its nuclear sites at a time when Washington and its NATO allies have openly declared Moscow’s defeat in Ukraine as their goal. At the same time, the Kremlin emphasized it wasn’t withdrawing from the pact altogether, pledging to respect its caps on nuclear weapons.
In offering in September to abide by New START’s limits for a year to buy time for both sides to negotiate a successor agreement, Putin said the pact’s expiration would be destabilizing and could fuel nuclear proliferation.
New START followed a long succession of US-Russian nuclear arms reduction pacts. Those have been terminated, as well.
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