Youth dies as he falls from stairs during quake

Siliguri : A panic-stricken youth died after he slipped while scrambling down the stairs of his house with his dog in this town of northern West Bengal during an earthquake on Wednesday, family members said.

Samrat Das, a B.Ed student who had come home on a holiday, lost consciousness after the fall and was declared brought dead at a private hospital.

The earthquake of magnitude 5.5 on the Richter scale, with its epicentre at Assam's Kokrajhar, occurred at 10.20 am.

Das, a resident of Santinagar locality, got tense as he felt the tremors, and tried to come out of the house with the dog, but got off-balance.

The body has been sent to the North Bengal Medical College Hospital for post mortem.