Nepal rules out finding more earthquake survivors as death toll passes 6,600

Nepal’s government says more than 6,600 people are known to have died in last week’s earthquake and hopes have faded for finding anyone still alive. The 7.8-magnitude quake reduced much of Kathmandu to rubble and triggered a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest when it erupted at around midday last Saturday. While teams of rescuers from more than 20 countries have been using sniffer dogs and heat-seeking equipment to find survivors in the rubble, no one has been pulled alive since Thursday evening.

It has already been one week since the disaster. We are trying our best in rescue and relief work but now I don’t think that there is any possibility of survivors under the rubble.

Nepal Home ministry spokesman Laxmi Prasad Dhakal

As hopes of detecting more signs of life among the ruins have all but disappeared, the focus is shifting to reaching survivors in far-flung areas who have yet to receive relief supplies. Local aid workers have told Sky News that in some regions of Nepal 80-100% of the homes have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people are now homeless and are likely to spend months living in makeshift shelters. Meanwhile, The UN children’s fund UNICEF warned of a race against time to avert an outbreak of disease among the 1.7 million youngsters estimated to be living in the worst-hit areas, with monsoon rains just a few weeks away.

Asia-Pacific nepal