- WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
- The earthquake survivor was pulled from rubble of his home in Swyambhu in the Kathmandu Valley on Sunday
- He had been stuck with the lifeless body of his friend after the building they were in collapsed around them
- In the Nepalese capital city of Kathmandu the bodies of hundreds killed have been laid out in the street
- Rescue teams are frantically using their hands to dig out survivors as aid relief from neighbouring India arrives
- As many as 18 climbers on Mount Everest were killed when base camp was swallowed by avalanche on Saturday
- More bodies are being pulled from destruction in cities ‘by the hour’ as the death toll continues to rise
Weeping with relief, a survivor of the Nepalese earthquake is pulled from what remains of his ruined home after spending the night buried alive.
Among the debris which entombed him for 24 hours is a lifeless body, one of more than 2,500 across the Himalayas in the wake of the escalating disaster.
The corpse is that of the man’s friend – the last person he spoke to before disaster struck his home in Swyambhu in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Cheek-to-cheek, they were both pulled from the rubble on Sunday, a day after the 7.8 earthquake wreaked havoc across Nepal.
In the capital city, the bodies of those buried alive have been laid in the street beneath white sheets. Their grieving relatives have prepared them for cremation, setting up make-shift funeral pyres in the city’s open spaces.
Hundreds are still missing, chief among them climbers stranded on Mount Everest after an avalanche triggered by the tremor buried its base camp on Saturday afternoon.
Appealing to the international community, survivors begged for blood and care packages to sustain the remaining population as surgeons began operating on the wounded in tents, their theatres destroyed in the quake.
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The man is pulled from the ruins as his friend lies lifeless next to him in Swyambhu in the Kathmandu Valley on Sunday morning. The pair were trapped after yesterday’s earthquake which has so far claimed 2,500 lives
The survivor finally wriggles free after becoming trapped with the body of his friend, one of the thousands killed in by the earthquake which is the worst the country has seen for 81 years
Rescue workers remove debris as they search for victims of the earthquake in the city of Bhaktapur (pictured above) found in the east of the Kathmandu Valley
The bodies of the victims are laid out in line outside a hospital in the city of Kathmandu in the wake of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that his the area on Saturday morning
Grieving women hold the hands of relatives as they lie beneath a thin white sheet in the city of Kathmandu. Makeshift funeral pyres are being set up across the city
The bodies of some of the thousands who have died in the disaster were laid outside the emergency ward at Bir Hospital in the Nepalese capital
In Bhaktapur, flowers and money are left on the body of one of the earthquake’s victims outside one of the city’s overrun hospitals
Health workers have resorted to placing numbers by the bodies of earthquake victims outside the overcrowded hospitals in Kathmandu
Mourners begin preparing a funeral pyre in a public park in the city of Bhaktapur in the Kathmandu Valley, as the bodies of those killed in the earthquake pile up
Nepalese policemen finally reach a woman trapped under rubble after digging for nine hours. Tragically, she died waiting to be freed from the ruins in Kathmandu
The United States Geological Survey said the quake struck 81 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Kathmandu at 06.11 GMT, with walls crumbling and families racing outside of their homes
Rescuers said the situation was likely to worsen with scores more bodies discovered every hour across the country.
‘Tragically, more bodies are being pulled from collapsed buildings every hour. Communication is down in many areas. Widespread destruction, rubble and landslides are preventing access to provide aid in many villages,’ an Australian Red Cross statement said.
Some of the most remote mountain villages could be completely buried in rubble, where rockfall may have claimed the lives of hundreds, if not more.
‘Villages like this are routinely affected by landslides, and it’s not uncommon for entire villages of 200, 300, up to 1,000 people to be completely buried by rock falls,’ said Matt Darvas, a member of the aid group World Vision. ‘It will likely be helicopter access only,’ he added.
Meanwhile officials fear hospitals may begin running out of crucial supplies at any moment. Trauma surgeons have begun operating on the critically wounded in tents after losing their theatres to the devastation.
‘We only have one operation theatre here. To be able to provide immediate treatment we require 15. I am just not able to cope,’ said Dipendra Pandey, an orthopaedic surgeon at the National Trauma Centre.
A lack of electricity would soon be complicated by a scarcity of water, aid groups said, with medical supplies also dwindling, while Oxfam told AFP morgues were reaching capacity.
Millions of pounds has been pledged by charities and governments the world over. British, German and French volunteers are among aid workers on their way to help with the crisis.
Too frightened to take shelter in doors in the fear that more buildings may collapse, survivors have set up makeshift camps in parks and open spaces.
‘Thousands of people have to stay outside of their homes, which have been damaged or destroyed by the earthquake. Shelter assistance is urgently needed,’ said Save the Children’s Peter Olyle, who is based in Kathmandu where 1,152 people are confirmed dead.
Charity Medecins sans Frontieres was struggling to get relief supplies including thousands of blankets and shelter in from India’s northern state of Bihar – also hit by Saturday’s quake – because landslides had made roads difficult to navigate. So far 61 people are believed to have been killed in India.
India flew in medical supplies and relief crews, while China sent in a 60-strong emergency team. Relief agencies said hospitals in the Kathmandu Valley were overflowing and running out of medical supplies.
A US disaster response team was en route and an initial $1million in aid to address immediate needs had been authorised, the US Agency for International Development said.
Australia and New Zealand together pledged more than $4.5million, and said they were working to locate hundreds of their citizens believed to be in Nepal, and South Korea promised $1million in humanitarian aid.
In the capital, hospital workers stretchered patients out onto the street to treat them as it was too dangerous to keep them indoors. The aftershock rocked buildings in the Indian capital New Delhi and halted the city metro.
Some buildings in Kathmandu toppled like houses of cards, others leaned at precarious angles, and partial collapses exposed living rooms and furniture in place and belongings stacked on shelves.
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