Nepal Earthquake: Rescuers Hunt for Survivors as Death Toll Rises -- 5th Update

By Jesse Pesta and Niharika Mandhana 

KATMANDU, Nepal--Fear of aftershocks sent thousands here into the streets and parks overnight, where they huddled under plastic tarps after a day during which soldiers and police dug, often by hand, in the rubble of collapsed buildings in a race to rescue survivors.

More than 2,400 people were confirmed dead after Saturday's 7.8-magnitude quake--the Himalayan nation's most devastating temblor in roughly 80 years--which rippled across a broad swath of Nepal, damaging the historic heart of Katmandu, flattening remote villages and triggering an avalanche on Mount Everest.

"It's a very desperate situation," a spokesman for Nepal's national police, Kamal Singh Bam, said Sunday. "The death toll is very high and it will go up even more. Rescue operations are slow because we don't have all the proper facilities."

The scale of the disaster poses a major challenge for the government of Nepal, one of the world's poorest and least-developed countries. Large parts of Nepal grapple with chronic electricity shortages, and outages are common even in the capital.

"It will take many months just to get back to normalcy," said Krishna Prasad Dhakal, deputy chief of mission at Nepal's embassy in New Delhi.

Saturday became the deadliest single day recorded on Mount Everest after a rush of ice and snow swept through the base camp where climbers were preparing to ascend, killing 17 people, according to the Nepal Mountaineering Association. Among them was Dan Fredinburg, a U.S.-based engineer for Google Inc. Three other Google employees on Everest were safe, the company said.

On Sunday, a large aftershock--strong enough to shake buildings 700 miles away in the Indian capital of New Delhi--sowed panic and caused more destruction and injury, police and witnesses said.

In Katmandu and the surrounding valley, home to more than 2.5 million people, residents flooded streets and parks for fear of being crushed indoors if another aftershock hit overnight.

Hospitals in the area were stretched thin and desperate for supplies.

The Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital near Katmandu's diplomatic enclave was overflowing with people. Patients were laid out on straw mats and sofa cushions, squeezed in between people in regular hospital beds. One elderly patient was curled up on the bare floor. Two other patients shared a stretcher, sleeping head-to-toe.

"We are running out of IV fluids and we don't have enough beds," said Ramesh Maharjan, an emergency-medicine physician at the hospital. "We don't have enough operating rooms" to handle surgeries needed for patients with serious spinal and head injuries.

Dozens of patients slept in makeshift tents pitched in front of the Om Hospital and Research Centre. "I wanted to come out here because we feared the quake would repeat," said Hyat Mohammad, who suffered a broken hip.

Others camped out on the hospital porch or bedded down on the floor of the entrance hall. One family was wrapped in a pink-and-purple blanket emblazoned with the words "Best Wishes." One woman suffered two broken legs after her stone house collapsed on top of her.

By Sunday night, the official police death toll in Nepal stood at 2,482, but officials said they expected it to rise as search teams reached more-remote areas. More than 6,100 people were injured. The quake's damage reached across Nepal's borders into India, where 60 were killed, and China, which reported 20 deaths.

Aid from neighboring India and China began pouring in over the weekend, and the U.S. Agency for International Development said it was deploying a team of humanitarian specialists and rescue workers.

But progress was hard to gauge, given the scope of the damage, said Mr. Bam, the police spokesman. Nepalese army and police teams focused on the Katmandu Valley, and it could be days before rescue specialists reached remote and mountainous areas, he said.

Near the quake's epicenter in Gorkha, about 50 miles northwest of Katmandu, thousands of homes and most of the district's schools were destroyed, said Uddav Timilsina, the chief district officer. "We are getting reports that 10 people are missing here, 50 people are missing there," Mr. Timilsina said. "But it is very, very difficult to say what is actually the situation on the ground."

Large parts of his district remained cut off. Landslides blocked roads and endangered rescue teams. "Phone lines are down, there is no access, we don't have any data from there right now," he said.

In a tent village in Tundi Khel field, a military parade ground in Katmandu, a couple dozen people sheltered under a red sheet of plastic propped up by waist-high sticks. Rows of makeshift tents stretched across the field.

Laxmi Shahi cradled her squalling 2-year-old son, Rashil, in her arms. "He doesn't like it," said Ms. Shahi.

In Durbar Square, where several historic wooden structures collapsed, people gathered around bonfires, chatting and drying their clothes late Sunday night after a drenching rain.

"There's no Internet working, so Nepalese people listen to the radio and we get the news by translation," said a French tourist.

On Saturday, Sushil Chaudhari, a 42-year-old human-rights activist in Katmandu, said he watched in horror as the nine-story Dharahara tower in Katmandu's center collapsed with his wife's 16-year-old nephew inside.

When the quake hit, "there was no time to think or react. It just fell, just like that," Mr. Chaudhari said. "I was paralyzed, people were screaming. I saw people die right in front of my eyes."

Mr. Chaudhari found his young relative's body buried under broken bits of the tower.

Historic neighborhoods of Nepal's capital were among the most damaged parts of the city, as some of the country's oldest buildings crumbled, leaving piles of old bricks. Katmandu and its suburbs are full of historical sites, including temples, palaces and courtyards, many of them more than 300 years old. Seven areas of the Katmandu Valley are protected as a Unesco World Heritage site.

The quake struck in what is known as the Indus-Yarlung suture zone, where the Indian subcontinent meets the Eurasian tectonic plate. The collision of the two, 40 million to 50 million years ago, gave rise to the Himalayas.

It is an area that has been the site of some of the region's deadliest earthquakes, including one in Kashmir in 2005 that killed more than 80,000 people. A massive earthquake also struck Nepal in 1934, causing mass casualties.

Besides China and India, other Asian countries, including Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, are sending search-and-rescue teams to Nepal. South Korea offered $1 million in emergency relief aid, while Taiwan pledged $300,000.

Raymond Zhong and Krishna Pokharel contributed to this article.

Write to Niharika Mandhana at [e-mail] and Krishna Pokharel at [e-mail]

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