by Our Foreign Desk

RESCUERS dug with their bare hands yesterday and bodies piled up in Nepal after an earthquake devastated the Kathmandu Valley on Saturday.

The 7.9 magnitude quake was centred outside the capital and killed more than 2,400 people, also triggering a lethal avalanche on Mount Everest.

And a big aftershock between Kathmandu and Everest unleashed more avalanches in the Himalayas yesterday.

In Kathmandu, hospital workers stretchered patients out to the street to treat them, saying it was too dangerous to keep them indoors.

The aftershock, measured at 6.7, was strong enough to feel like an another earthquake and caused a pause in landings at Kathmandu’s airport where planeloads of supplies, doctors and relief workers from neighbouring countries were arriving.

It rocked buildings as far away as New Delhi.

On Everest, the bodies of 17 climbers were recovered from the mountain after being caught in avalanches.

“There is a lot of confusion on the mountain. The toll will rise,” warned Gelu Sherpa, one of the walking wounded among the first 15 injured climbers flown to Kathmandu.

India flew in medical supplies and relief crews, while China sent in a 60-strong emergency team.

Pakistan’s is sending four C-130 aircraft with a 30-bed hospital, search and rescue teams and relief supplies.

Relief agencies said local hospitals were overflowing and running out of medical supplies as bodies and casualties were still arriving.

Save the Children spokesman Peter Olyle said hospitals were running out of storage room for bodies and emergency supplies.

“There is a need for a government decision on bringing kits from the military,” he said.

Authorities said yesterday that at least 2,400 people had died, all but 60 of them in Nepal.

Around 721 of them died in Kathmandu alone and the number of injured nationwide was upward of 5,000 and rising.

Aid workers warned that the situation could be far worse near the epicentre. The US Geological Survey said the quake had been centred near Lamjung, about 50 miles north-west of Kathmandu.

But roads to the area were still blocked by landslides, hindering rescue teams.