Nepal's remote mountainous areas have suffered "almost total devastation" from a powerful quake that claimed over 6,300 lives, aid agencies warned even as relief slowly began to reach far-flung regions amid fresh aftershocks that kept people on edge.
Top Indian officials took stock of the situation in the battered country as they assured Nepal of all possible assistance.
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar called on Prime Minister Sushil Koirala soon after their arrival in Kathmandu to discuss the rescue and relief operations in the areas affected by the earthquake.
Tremors jolted Nepal for the sixth day on Friday as rescuers struggled with disposing off dead bodies and sifting through mounds of rubble for rare survivors after hopes of finding them were rekindled following the miraculous rescue of a teenage boy and a young woman on Thursday.
International humanitarian bodies called for greater urgency in relief efforts as the death toll from Saturday's devastating temblor topped 6,300 while the number of injured reached around 14,000.
"One of our teams that returned from Chautara in Sindupalchowk district reported that 90 per cent of the homes are destroyed. The hospital has collapsed, and people are digging through the rubble with their hands in the hope that they might find family members who are still alive," said Jagan Chapagain, Director of Asia Pacific with the IFRC.
"We can expect the situation to be the same if not worse in many other places where aid has not yet been delivered," Chapagain said.
There are estimates that up to 40,000 homes in Sindupalchowk alone have been destroyed, the IFRC said in a statement.
The amount of emergency aid needed for such a large-scale disaster outstrips the capacity of Kathmandu's small and the country's only international airport, which is receiving an extremely high volume of aid flights now coming into Nepal, it said.
Meanwhile, relief was slowly beginning to reach remote mountainous towns and villages after efforts were earlier hampered due to heavy rains and aftershocks.
According to the Home Ministry, 20 helicopters carrying relief have landed in the districts of Sindhupalchok, Dolakha, Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading and Gorkha – some of the worst-hit areas.
Dozens of aftershocks have forced people to stay in the open, battling chilly weather and rains besides post-disaster diseases and stench from the dead bodies trapped in the rubble.
An aftershock measuring 4 on the Richter Scale jolted the country this morning and was centred around Kathmandu. Few hours later, another tremor measuring 4.2 on the Richter Scale was recorded in Dolakha district, some 300 km south-east of Kathmandu.
Doval, who also took an aerial survey of the Gorkha district, said: "India stands steadfastly with Nepal, (and it) will give all the help possible to them."
"We have taken an account of how the Nepalese government and the Nepalese Army are working and how the NDRF is assisting them with total dedication and a total sense of commitment and they have done very good work," he said.
On Thursday, Nepal's Army Chief said the death toll in the quake could be as high as 15,000, a day after Prime Minister Sushil Koirala feared the figure could reach 10,000 because information from the affected remote villages is yet to come.
Anger and frustration have mounted in the country that has witnessed scenes of people clashing with police and seizing food and water supplies and have blamed the administration of slow relief work.
According to the Home Ministry, over 2,50,000 buildings have been damaged in the quake - partially or completely.
The United Nations has said that around 8 million people have been affected in the country's worst disaster in eight decades.
Capital city Kathmandu, otherwise filled with foreign tourists, is teeming with uniformed international rescuers, who battle against all odds, sifting through mountains of debris to look for survivors, still feared trapped beneath it, on the sixth day since the tragedy struck.
Besides neighbouring countries like India, China and Pakistan, helping the battered nation restore to normalcy, the US has sent in its team. Poland and several other nations have pitched in with special teams to save precious human lives.
And, miraculous survivors, like a five-month-old baby pulled out of the rubble only provide a glimmer of hope in this hour of darkness and stand testimony to the feats of human strength -- physical and mental.
