“The death toll could go up to 10,000 because information from remote villages hit by the earthquake is yet to come in,” Koirala said.
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In neighbouring India 61 people were killed and China’s official Xinhua News Agency said 25 people had died in Tibet. Eighteen others were killed in avalanches on Mount Everest.
Another avalanche hit a village in the district of Rasuwa, north of Kathmandu, on Tuesday, leaving up to 250 people missing. Ghodatabela, about a 12-hour walk from the nearest town, is along a popular trekking route, but it was not clear if the missing included trekkers.
Health workers said they feared a major health crisis was unfolding among survivors of the quake who are living in the open or in overcrowded tents with no access to sanitation or clean water.
On Tuesday helicopters crisscrossed the skies above Gorkha, close to the epicentre of Saturday’s magnitude 7.8 quake, ferrying the injured to clinics and taking emergency supplies back to remote villages. Aid workers who had reached the region described entire villages reduced to rubble.
“In some villages, about 90% of the houses have collapsed. They’re just flattened,” said Rebecca McAteer, an American physician. Udav Prashad Timalsina, the top official for Gorkha, warned that people were not getting food and shelter.