Powerful aftershocks rocked Nepal Sunday, panicking survivors of a quake
that killed more than 2,500, as rescuers dug through rubble in the
devastated capital Kathmandu
As rescuers desperately searched for survivors who may be buried amid the rubble in the Nepalese capital of Katmandu or trapped in remote mountain villages, officials announced that more than 3,300 people are now confirmed dead after the earthquake that struck Saturday.
The death toll could rise further after officials are able to assess the damage to the communities nestled within the country's mountains. Efforts to reach those villages have so far been hampered by landslides that have blocked many mountain trails.
Matt Darvas, a member of the aid group World Vision told the Associated Press that many of those villages will only be accessible by helicopter.
"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," Darvas told AP.
The magnitude-7.8 earthquake hit Nepal Saturday, toppling buildings in the impoverished nation's capital of Katmandu and triggering an avalanche that buried part of the base camp at Mount Everest.
Climbers from around the globe travel to scale Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, and among the 18 people killed in the avalanche there were Google executive Daniel Fredinburg, who was part of a team from the firm attempting to create a Google street map of the trek to Everest Base Camp, and Marisa Eve Girawong, an emergency room physician's assistant serving as a base camp doctor for the Seattle-based Madison Mountaineering expedition company.
Climber Carsten Pederson, who survived the avalanche that hit the base camp, told CNN that he witnessed people try to flee the rush of ice and snow.
"They were trying to outrun the avalanche and you cannot," CNN quoted Pederson as saying. "So many people were hit from behind, blown off the mountain, blown into rocks, hit by debris, tents were flying off."
Deputy Inspector General of Police Komal Singh Bam said Monday that Nepal's death toll had risen to 3,218 people. In addtion, at least 18 people died in the avalanche on Mount Everest, another 61 were killed in India and 20 more people were reported dead in Tibet.