E.L.D. Cornerstone.  Life in words & pictures

April 27, 2015

With international aid beginning to flow but desperation still rising, rescue crews in Nepal expanded helicopter searches Monday into remote villages believed to be the worst hit from a massive earthquake that already has claimed more than 4,200 lives.

The missions deep into the Himalayan valleys highlighted worries that the death toll could still rise from Saturday’s 7.8 magnitude quake that flattened densely populated areas near Kathmandu, toppled centuries-old monuments and buried Everest base camp with a deadly avalanche of snow and jagged ice.

In Kathmandu and elsewhere, the smoky haze from mass cremations wafted over the devastation after skies cleared following torrential rain. Survivors massed in tent camps amid frightening aftershocks and fears of further landslides on quake-weakened slopes.

“There are people who are not getting food and shelter. I’ve had reports of villages where 70 percent of the houses have been destroyed,” said Udav Prashad Timalsina, the top official in the central Gorkha district near the temblor’s epicenter.