by Our Foreign Desk

SATURDAY’S magnitude-7.8 earthquake in Nepal continued to register victims yesterday, its death toll soaring past 4,000 and certain to rise still higher.

Overstretched officials complained of shortages of shelter, fuel, food, medicine, power, news and workers as people searched for lost loved ones and belongings in the rubble of their houses.

While the world’s media has reached Kathmandu and Mount Everest, the hard-hit countryside and vulnerable mountain villages still remain disconnected.

Udav Prashad Timalsina, the top official for the Gorkha district on which the earthquake was centred, said yesterday that he was in desperate need of help.

“There are people who are not getting food and shelter. I’ve had reports of villages where 70 per cent of the houses have been destroyed,” he said.

Aid group World Vision said that its staff had been able to reach Gorkha but that gathering information from the villages remained a challenge.

“In those villages that have been reached, the immediate needs are great, including the need for search and rescue, food items, blankets and tarps and medical treatment.”

Mr Timalsina added that 223 people had been confirmed dead in Gorkha district but he presumed that “the number would go up because there are thousands who are injured.”

Army spokesman Jagdish Pokhrel said that almost the entire 100,000-soldier army was involved in rescue operations.

“We have 90 per cent of the army out there working on search and rescue. We are focusing our efforts on that, on saving lives,” he stressed.

Aid is coming from many countries and charities, but government chief secretary and rescue co-ordinator Lila Mani Poudyal warned that Nepal needed more.

He said that the recovery was slowing because many workers — water tanker drivers, electricity company employees and labourers needed to clear debris — had all gone back to their families and were refusing to work.

“We are appealing for tents, dry goods, blankets, mattresses and 80 different medicines that the health department is seeking that we desperately need now,” said Mr Poudyal.

“We don’t have the helicopters that we need or the expertise to rescue the people trapped.”

He appealed to foreign governments to send “specialised and smart teams.”