Nepal Earthquake: Rescue Effort Intensified

NEPA

Relief efforts in Nepal are intensifying after more than 2,300 people were killed in the worst earthquake there in more than 80 years. Rescue missions and aid material have started arriving in the country. BBC reports live from there:

Seventeen people have been killed on Mt Everest by avalanches – the mountain’s worst-ever disaster. Meanwhile a powerful aftershock was felt on Sunday in Nepal, India and Bangladesh, and more avalanches were reported near Everest. The 6.7-magnitude tremor, centred 60km (40 miles) east of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, sent people running in panic for open ground in the city.

As military helicopters hovered over Kathmandu and ferried relief supplies to victims of the earthquake in western Nepal, search and rescue efforts were going on in at least five locations in Kathmandu. Near the prime minister’s official residence, two bulldozers scoured the rubble of a flattened four-storey house.

A bystander said it was the local tax office. The bodies of the four staff inside had been recovered minutes before.