Kathmandu--Rescuers in Nepal searched frantically Sunday for survivors of a huge quake that killed nearly 2,000, digging through rubble in the devastated capital Kathmandu and airlifting victims of an avalanche at Everest base camp.
Terrified residents of Kathmandu were woken by fresh aftershocks in the worst disaster to hit the impoverished Himalayan nation in more than 80 years, with many forced to spend the night trying to sleep out on the streets and open ground in makeshift tents.
Hospitals were so stretched that medics had set up tents outside the buildings to treat patients.
The historic nine-storey Dharahara tower, a major tourist attraction, was among the buildings brought down, with at least a dozen bodies were taken away from the ruins of the 19th-century tower.
Offers of help poured in from governments around the world, with the United States and European Union announcing they were sending in disaster response teams. India flew out its stranded citizens in military planes.
"The toll has reached 1899, more than 4,500 are injured," national police spokesman Kamal Singh Bam told AFP.
"We have deployed all our resources for search and rescues.
"Helicopters have been sent to remote areas. We are sifting through the rubble where buildings have collapsed to see if we can find anyone."
Officials said that 17 people were so far known to have died on Mount Everest where an avalanche triggered by the earthquake buried part of base camp.
It is the deadliest disaster in Everest's history and comes almost exactly a year after an avalanche killed 16 sherpa guides.
AFP's Nepal bureau chief Ammu Kannampilly, on an assignment at base camp, reported that six helicopters had managed to reach the mountain on Sunday morning after the weather had improved overnight.
"People being stretchered out as choppers land - half a dozen this morning," Kannampilly said in a text message.
AFP
