KATHMANDU: Death toll continued to climb in Saturday’s 7.9 magnitude hit Nepal as 4,310 people bodies have been found from debris.
International rescue teams with sniffer dogs raced to find survivors buried in rubble, and teams equipped with heavy cutting gear and relief supplies landed at the nation’s only international airport.
The country’s home ministry says the death toll has risen to 4,310 — making it the quake-prone Himalayan nation’s deadliest disaster in more than 80 years.
Shortages of food and water were compelling Nepalese citizens to flee their devastated capital .With fears rising of food and water shortages, people were also rushing to stores and petrol stations to stock up on supplies in the capital.
Fears were also rising of disease outbreaks among huge number of people traumatised survivors who have been camping out in parks and other open spaces in Kathmandu.
The United Nations prepared a massive aid operation. Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN’s World Food Programme, told media that agency would launch a large, massive operation with the first plane carrying rations set to arrive on Tuesday (today).
Right now, it is important to prevent another disaster by taking precautions against an outbreak of diseases among the survivors, army spokesman Arun Neupane told reporters.
Families were packing onto buses, some even sitting on the roofs, and into cars, to leave the city for their home villages to determine the extent of the damage there.
Around 8,000 people are now known to have been injured in Saturday’s quake, said ministry spokesman Laxmi Prasad Dhakal.
At least 100 people were also killed in neighbouring India and China after the quake.
