the death toll climbs after nepal is shaken by a 7.9 magnitude earthquake. hello once again from doha. this is world news from al jazeera. desperate to leave ooep yoep ya. we meet those determined to cross land and sea to reach europe. in togo the polls are open. will the family continue another term. a report from chile where ash an erupting volcano has reached as far as the argentine

capital. developing story today. of that of a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in nepal. you see it on the map on the left there. the epicenter is in between, about hatchway in between po pokhara and katmandu. at least 50 reported trapped in a 19th century tower and tremorors felt as far away as new delhi and the capital of bangladesh. i want to start with nepal's minister of information and communications on the line from cat katmandu. thank you for taking time to talk to us at this time. tell us about the rescue efforts at this moment.

>> we're locating the people and asking the communities to help each other. the police and army has been mobilized and they have been instructured to provide any services that's needed to any civilian under the national emergency relief and also we have people trapped in the rubble. the ministry the political sector is mobilizing this so people trabpped in the rubble can be rescued. we're trying to put our acts together. we're gathering in the center of the cabinet meeting that will start shortly including action by the prime ministers here. the police chiefs are here. very soon we will be able to mobilize all the -- secure all

the operations needed. most importantly, the message to the people of nepal is [ inaudible ] should be met and be safe ourselves and provide support for anyone who needs support. use services minimally if possible only if it's needed. we're trying to put it together. also we've been contacted by india and china. they're willing to provide support. the airport will be kept open so that any support mission that needs to be flown in or any rescue team that needs to be flown is we're trying to be -- keep the airport open so they could land there and provide the support. that's just out of need for any

support that's going to come to here for us. most importantly, we're just trying to put together our people soo that they can go in a more coordinated fashion here. >> right. obviously, you will look for international help as the days go on. i wonder about the situation now. are you comfortable that emergency services hospitals, civil defense can act swiftly enough in this moment right now and make a difference right now? >> yeah. at the community level they're providing the support that's possible. they're giving the information to us, and based upon the information we receive, we have have the police and army and the hospitals public or private in the community to provide services. >> minister thank you so much

your time. thank you for joining us to update us on the latest response there. he's talking about local services civil defense and hospitals being able to respond now, and then a meeting of the prime minister and his cabinet to talk about wider response. that will, of course involve looking for help from some of nepal's neighbors, perhaps india, pakistan and bangladesh. bangladesh and india felt this quake as well. these are the first pictures we started to get through maybe 45 minutes or an hour ago. these first pictures came out of the devastation in parts of katmandu. a lot of temples we have heard about -- that's one there. the temple has been destroyed. we have a picture i'm hoping we can show you, comparisons. side by side you see what's happened in that particular part of kneenepal, a tourist site visited

and rubbles on left reduced to nothing on the right. this is a powerful earth convey 7.9 magnitude, originally 7.5. more significant is the fact it was only 2 kilometers deep and that's why we see such levels of damage. this unesco world heritage site. this is the before and after picture of what we're seeing just a few moments ago. okay. so on the line from katmandu our correspondent is there we've been speaking to throughout the day. it's good to remind of what happened and how you felt the earthquake as it happened. >> reporter: i was at the site and the cameraman just fell down. when we walked out there are cars in the road and people have fallen off the bike.

i live in a very congested part of the city five-minute walk from the world heritage site. when you try to the area, a temple has blocked a road and a few mortem -- more temples have been damaged. when i what walk three, people are crying. the scary part is the aftershocks, and it's just like a few minutes ago there was an aftershock. there's a fear of something come down. i have not been able to verify what it is. >> i'm wondering about -- we were talking to the minister but about how quickly response is able to get through from emergency service for medical. people told me the roads are very narrow there. if you have all this infrastructure that came town this is a very very difficult response. >> yes. in the three levels people have been going and trying to rescue

people from the rubble and it's a couple of guys that came earlier were talking about how you could hear voices under the rubble. locals have been going and trying to help out. the response from the locals has been quite amazing. there's a lot of delays out there because of the rubble. as i said earlier, you would walk through the square to the world heritage site but you can't actually ride through. so there are going to be a lot of impediments forrest -- for rescue efforts. >> as much as azouni place can be prepared for an earthquake how is nepal prepared for this kind of thing? do they deal with them a lot, tremors? >> there are, but this is massive. every 100 years katmandu has a

massive earthquake. there were earthquakes and it's very congested. lots of building are giving way. a lot of structures have been built, so there are some people that are -- as a whole the city is not the same. >> stay with me a moment there. i want to show viewers something on the ipad here. i've been going through social media and having a look. i'm looking at the tower in nye pal. can you tell us about this. i'll show the viewers the before and after tell them about the importance in knee pale. >> the tower was built in

[ inaudible ] [ inaudible ] [ inaudible ] and it came down whether the last earthquake struck and was rebuilt again. it's a popular thing. a lot of people go and see this from the tower, and that's why some many people are trapped in there. >> they say over 200 tickets were taken to view from the tower today, so there could be any number of people up there. you see the tower there, and you see around that that sort of ring of like a wall with spires on it. then if i go to this next pictures apology nor the slow lag on ipad you can see the spires there -- the tower itself is gone. thank you so much for that. let's move to the next correspondent live in new deli. you were feeling it there as well? >> reporter: absolutely. for quite a number of seconds,

actually, and relatively strong. in fact major sense of panic in the capital, new delhi, here in india. we should say that tremors were felt across north india, even as far east as calcutta. in terms of india, there are suggestions there may have been deaths -- there have been deaths, several them in the state of behar as well. the indian government is set to convene a high-level meeting this afternoon. it should be anytime now to assess what's going on in india and what india's response to nepal will be as the authorities there ascertain what kind of damage they're looking at and what kind of casualties across the katmandu valley. >> take me through what it felt like at the time. whether you talk about 1,000 kilometers from the epicenter still what it felt like there? >> reporter: quite a lot of rumbles under the ground as we were sitting. you could really feel some of the tremors and shakes and it was quite sustained and that led

to a fair amount of panic given the amount of time in seconds that you're looking at the ground shaking in india. people reportedly coming out of their building and various places that they work wondering where, in fact the epicenter was given how strong the shakes were in new delhi. as time went by the epicenter has, in fact, been located in nepal. but the big question in india as well will be what kind of impact it had on the himalayas. the indian side of them has come up as one area where there be an effect but certainly in delhi quite a substantial tremor felt and a lot of panic across the city and across the northern regions of india. >> thank you. live from new delhi. she made a good point about the himalaya mountain range, and there were unconfirmed reports i would say of avalanches on mt. everest affects the base camp there.

those are unconfirmed reports at the time. that whole area is known for mountain climbing and adventures of that nature. the sherpas that work there and the mountain climbers who come there. we're waiting to hear more about that now. that is the tower i think we were showing you earlier on twitter on the social media pictures. the tower, 19th century tower, 4 stories, high i believe and that's all that's left of it. an earlier guest we spoke to was telling us that there could be up to 200 people in and around there. they took tickets to go up the tower. quite extraordinary pictures out of katmandu today. it goes beyond this as well. as we talked about the tremors being felt in new delhi, so too they were in the capital of bangladesh bangladesh. talk us through what happened when the quake hit? how did you feel it? >> reporter: i think my

cameraman said it best. we were about to start filming a story and he was getting his equipment ready when he started to sway and felt everything shaking in front of him and thought he was having a -- some sort of heart condition. he was worried he was getting sick. he try to adjust his balance because it lasted so long. he was about to turn -- he still didn't know that it was an earthquake because it's not terribly common to have such a sustained, prolong quake. there are tremors, but they're not usually that strong. however, this time it just lasted for a very long time what felt like forever. enough time for people to rush down towards it. i heard from various people and on social media that is shared of people rushing down from high-rise buildings and getting

out of the streets. they're kind of looking around confusioned and unsure of what to do really. so far we heard that -- partly because of the panic hundreds of -- over 100 workers were injured in a factory north of the capital because they are trying to get out of the building because they were worried about what might be happening. there's an unconfirmed report that one ofdeath, but it's not confirmed. what is kwermedconfirmed is one person died in the country. there was an elderly woman that was walking when the quake hit and fell down and died. >> have you felt any aftershocks since? i'm wondering if -- we hear about after shocks in nepal. do you field them further afield as well? >> reporter: we understand there

was -- after the initial quake there was one aftershock felt in bangladesh. no other reports of that. what is interesting is that the quake was felt all over the country. the quake, obviously, took place in the north, which is why the most damage we hear about is coming from the north. the woman that died was in the bern part of the country and we felt it in the center of the country. there are reports of injuries east of the country as well and down south near the border with myanmar. >> we're on the line giving you an idea how far this earthquake has been felt. we were speaking to our reporter in new delhi who felt it as well. this is a big quake. this is 7.9 magnitude. it was originally 7.5. i'm just going to show this on the ipad which i've just seen. i'll try to straighten it up a little bit.

this is shows ten aftershocks in nepal. there's 7.9 at the bottom. i don't know if you can see it. 7.9 is the original one there, 20 kilometers southeast of nepal, and we see all the aftershocks. they're all -- all of this has happened in the last -- i think this is the last 25 minutes according to the u.n.'s office for humanitarian affairs. a huge humanitarian situation underway. we've seen some of the pictures coming through here. temples falling to the ground people out in the street hospital beds out in the street as people try to treat the injured and get anyone they can who might be left underneath those layers of rubble. it's a huge situation in nepal at the moment. we will bring you more on it more updates from ors dent correspondents as we get them. the italian coast guard,

which says it has rescued 228 people in two separate operations, as europe continues to struggle with the migrants crisis. we look at sicily where many migrants are being held after being rescued by the italian coast guard. look at the coast guards on patrol off of libya, because that's where they begin the sea journey but the land journey is further south, somewhere like yoep ya. dozens risk to reach europe. >> reporter: almost everyone here knew at least five young men killed by isil in libya last week. they were headed to europe through a well-traveled smuggling route. the plan was to cross the mediterranean sea to italy. in the neighborhood where three of them grew up many joins their families in mourning.

there were inconsolable. their pain is hard to describe. they were looking for a better life. many friends here are also desperate to leave. those we talk to say life is difficult, and staying in ethiopia is not an option. these are some of the childhood friends that saw them off two months ago. they hoped to follow soon and even as they grieve they have not abandoned that plan. >> translator: i think it's dangerous, but it's better than being stuck here. i'll be better when i go. >> reporter: he attempted it. he never got to his destination. he said smugglers failed to agree to a payment for the border police. >> translator: the smugglers are brutal. they don't care about anyone. they only care about money. they beat us.

>> reporter: ethiopia has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. still, it's a poor country. many people are unemployed. some analysts believe it's the mentality rather than poverty that drives people to live. >> this mindset, this collective social cycle as you offer going to dreamland, countries of destination with plenty of opportunities has been a driving factor. >> reporter: back in the neighborhood the vigil goes on. even as some of the young people here dream of plans to leave the country no matter what. the libyan coast guard is not an easy mission. they don't have enough equipment and the smugglers continue to adapt their tactics according to the changes on the ground. one of the coast forwards told me he's smur that the smugglers

have informant in force to tell them when the coast guard is about to set off on patrol. then they say they notice among the migrants that they have rescued over the past few weeks, about 250, that there was no skipper on board. migrants say that one of the them was told quickly how to steer the boat or little raft in exchange of this. in other instances the skippers get them to a certain point and then under a prephysical examination, like the engine has broken down. they have another boat and completely abandon the migrants in the middle of the sea. they also say that going after the migrants in libya, though is not going to work simply because this is the last leg of a very long journey. most of the migrants have been through one, two, three, or four countries before reaching the coast of libya. you have smuggling networks that operate in all these countries. some of the heads of these

networks are not in libya. so according to the coast guard, their point of view is if you want to go after the smugglers, you have to carry out operations in several countries. a very difficult task for the eu. an italian court ordered two men suspected of being traffickers in one of the mediterranean's worst migrant disasters to remain in jail. we have the report from sicily. >> reporter: is this the face of a trader in human misery? that's what a court has to decide. he says he was only a passenger on the overcrowded boat that capsized with the loss of hundreds of lives. other survivors say he was the boat captain. he's only a small cog in the huge business of taking people across the mediterranean. like in any every sicilian town

there are migrants in the squares and bus stations bored and frustrated planning the next move. we weren't allowed in the reap reception area and she never thought she'd be a worker in her hometown. >> people dying at sea is very -- we cannot stand it. it's crazy. people should have have the right to move, to ask for asylum. it's not possible to die just because they need to escape from war or poverty. >> reporter: these two asked us not to show their faces. sara is a microbiologist who dreams of getting a ph.d. in europe. she arrived this week after eight days at sea. they paid about 3,000 u.s. dollars each to the smugglers. >> they're not bad. they're just trying to make a business. i think it's a very big business

to take from one person $3,000. >> reporter: you don't feel angry towards them? >> no they're doing the business. they're not forcing you to go. this is your wish. >> they did not mistreat you on the boat? >> no. >> at the station a group of sudanese are trying to cobble together the money to take the train north. this is the escape route for many migrants because the majority we have spoken to say they have no intention of staying here. they think of sweden germany and the united kingdom as countries they'd like to get it. in other words sicily and italy is just one stage in their long and dangerous journey. all the time more arrive on sicily's shores. back at the harbor the coast guard brought 80 africans into port. they celebrate their survival and face many challenges to come in europe a country that does not want them.

polls have opened in togo where the president is the clear favorite to win another term. after all, his family has ruled the country for 48 years already. we have a report. >> reporter: there's a steady stream of voters at this particular polling station where we are. people are identify their picture and name and find where or which particular booth they will vote in. the issue around this election is how long should a president stay in power? the president is going for a third term in office and this is something being debated across the region because there is no presidential term limit. it's not in the constitution here. he's within his rights to go as many times as he wants, but this is the problem. in their neighbor last year you saw how the then president was forced out of office because he tried to change the constitution so that he could run for a third term. he was actually pushed out by

popular protest, which took the region and africa to be honest by surprise. people are closely watching what is happening here. also unique for togo this time around is the fact the local service has the opportunity to compare their results with what the official election results are. they set up a system where they can be monitoring the results coming from polling stations and they will check against the result coming in from the electoral commission. if there are any discrepancies, that's the question what will will they do? they say they will raise any issues with the head of the electoral commission. also you know togo is important in the region because it's a major hub. this port bringing in a lot of business and activity which fwz to the rest of west africa. travel across the region so business-wise people want to see what is happening here. so all eyes are on what is

happening and people are waiting to see how the day, the events will go. in yemen how theuhti forces are pushing they're way into more areas in the sou. rebel south. they're trying to gain more ground in aden. they want to end the fighting for coalition strikes. at least 28 people have been killed in the south. memorial services are held in turkey to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the bloodiest battles of world war i. prince charles was there where turkey grouped backed by it rerepelled an alleyied attacks. a chilean volcano that erupted on wednesday is still puffing out ash and smoke. more people evacuating and airlines canceling flights. >> reporter: like a sleeping giant rudely awoken the calbuco

reminded chile 43 years of lying dormant is a cat nap in the life of an active volcano. the more than 10 million years old volcano erupted suddenly late thursday. now many residents forced to evacuate were briefly allowed to return to the so-called red zone to check on their homes and clear roads and roofs as best they could. >> translator: i came to remove the ash from the roof so it won't collapse. we are nervous and don't know when we will be able to return home. >> reporter: a state of emergency remains in effect in towns and cities near the calbuco. >> translator: the volcano is very unstable and it could erupt again. actually, it is still in eruption, but i mean it could be larger lava flows mudslides and explosions that could put people's lives at risk.

>> reporter: as the calbuco continues to belch huge clouds of ash in the direction of neighboring argentina where air traffic is severely disrupted, here volunteers distributed food and water to those trying to salvage their belongings. or simply find their pets. these cows are sitting in what 48 hours ago were lush green pastures. now they and other livestock are also being evacuated. >> translator: there are at least 600 animals that we need to take elsewhere because there is too much ash and they will starve if they remain here. >> most of this ash actually looks and feels like a collection of little stones as you can see. absolutely everything here is covered in it. the worst part isn't trying to clear this all away which could take as long as a year. it's the uncertainty about whether the volcano will go back to sleep or whether it will erupt again at any time.

that's something experts tell us only the volcano knows for sure. al jazeera in chile. plenty more news from the americas and all over the world including breaking news from nepal at aljazeera.com. night. hello, i'm ray suarez, good news, a local billionaire wants to keep your sports franchise in town. there's a hitch - he wants you and your neighbours to find the bill for the shiny new luxury boxes and expressway exit and doesn't want to pay much rent. may not sound like a great deal, but over and over cities are muscled into municipally funded sports facilities over threat of leaving town, or promising a new team.