At least five people have been killed, including one child, and more than 450 injured after a 5.5 magnitude earthquake hit Bangladesh.
The epicentre of the earthquake was close to the Narsingdi district, about 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) from the capital, Dhaka.
People rushed from residential buildings as buildings shook and makeshift structures collapsed. At least 10 students were injured in a stampede as they tried to leave Dhaka University on Friday.
“We have never experienced an earthquake this powerful in the last five years,” said the country’s environmental adviser Syeda Rizwana Hasan.
At least three people were killed when a railing and debris fell from a five-storey building in Dhaka’s Armanitola area, deputy police commissioner Mallik Ahsan Uddin Sami said.
Nitai Chandra De Sarkar, director of the department’s monitoring division, said 461 people have been reported injured across the country, including 252 in the Gazipur district, north of Dhaka.
Sarker told the BBC: “Our main task at the moment is to assess casualties and damage. We are not yet seeing the challenge of rescue from the rubble or debris management at that level.”
Bengali Sadman Sakib told Reuters news agency: “I have never felt such tremor in my 30 years of life. We were at the office when the furniture started shaking.
“We rushed down the stairs on the street and saw other people on the road already.”
A student called Abdullah, who was sleeping at the time of the earthquake, told Reuters the “whole building was shaking”.
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