EARTHQUAKE HIT NEPAL magnitude 7.3, strikes near Everest

A little more than two weeks after thousands died in a mammoth earthquake, Nepal got hit hard again on Tuesday -- with another powerful tremor that has already left dozens more dead, more than 1,000 injured and questions about what's next for the already traumatized Asian nation.

Tuesday's magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck at a depth of about 15 kilometers (9 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said. For comparison's sake, the 7.8 quake on April 25 -- which killed more than 8,000 people -- was more than three times bigger and 5.6 times stronger, in terms of energy released, according to the agency.

The fact that Nepal just endured a similar horror, not to mention waves of aftershocks that followed, didn't diminish from Tuesday's damage or shock. Some buildings that were damaged earlier collapsed, while locals scrambled for their lives knowing full well Mother Nature's might.

Nepalese government information and communications ministry spokesman Minendra Rijal said that at least 29 people, some of them in Kathmandu and the Dolakha district, had died as of late Tuesday afternoon. More than 1,000 had been counted as injured at that point.

"For the first seconds, it was complete silence. By the fifth second, everybody started to scream," said Marc Sarrado, a 41-year-old documentarian from Spain who was in Nepal's Nuwakot Valley, about two hours northwest of Kathmandu, when the quake hit.

"It was really, really intense. Even when the shaking stopped, people were still screaming. They were completely panicked, because they knew exactly what it was."

So, yes, it could have been worse. But that doesn't mean it wasn't dangerous.

The carnage wasn't confined to Nepal. Three more people died in a wall collapse in India's Bihar state, which borders Nepal, said Sunil Kumar, a senior disaster management official in that Indian state.

Indian Defense Ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar tweeted that his country's troops are involved in helping those injured, killed and otherwise impacted in Nepal, including flying some casualties from the village of Mrigu to Kathmandu by helicopter.

As bad as this latest nightmare has been, it's not necessarily over. The fact such a big quake hit so soon after the one last month is proof that another one -- perhaps bigger, perhaps smaller -- could come at any time.

To drive home this point, residents in the region dealt with a number of powerful aftershocks, including one at magnitude 6.3, after the initial quake struck around midday.