Kathmandu, Nepal--One thousand EU citizens are still unaccounted for in Nepal, diplomats said Friday, almost a week after a massive earthquake that has claimed more than 6,300 lives and left survivors desperate for aid.
The Europeans had mostly been climbing in the avalanche-hit Everest region and trekking in the remote Langtang range in the Himalayas near the epicentre of the quake that ripped up infrastructure and left tens of thousands homeless.
"They are missing but we don't know what their status is," EU ambassador to Nepal Rensje Teerink told reporters in the devastated capital Kathmandu, confirming that 12 EU citizens are known to have died so far.
Another EU official said on condition of anonymity that the majority were likely to be found safe, but given the difficulty of the terrain and poor communications, their whereabouts were currently unknown.
Concern over the missing underscores the mammoth task facing rescue and relief teams struggling to reach mountainous districts cut off by Nepal's deadliest quake in more than 80 years.
Desperate survivors living at ground zero have complained they felt abandoned to their fate after losing their loved ones and livelihoods in the disaster.
"The scale and devastation wreaked by the earthquake and the aftershocks would have challenged any government. The Nepal government is leading the response effort and has deployed its available resources," UN aid chief Valerie Amos told reporters Friday.
Amos added that while she was "heartened and encouraged" by the generosity shown by the international community, there was an urgent need to provide emergency shelter and basic goods and services as the monsoon season approaches.
"So many people have lost everything," she said.
While the rescue of two survivors reinvigorated the search for further signs of life in the ruins of Kathmandu, the Red Cross warned of "total devastation" in far-flung areas.
Six days on from the 7.8-magnitude quake, authorities put the number of dead in Nepal at 6,204 while around 100 more were killed in neighbouring India and China.
Eighteen were killed when a quake-triggered avalanche roared over Everest base camp where scores were gathered for the start of the climbing season.
The popular Langtang trekking route was also hit by an avalanche on Tuesday.
But the full extent of the destruction wrought by Saturday's quake was still emerging, especially in the Sindhupalchowk region, northeast of Kathmandu, where the sense of desperation was mounting.
AFP
