Powerful aftershocks rocked Nepal on Sunday, panicking survivors of a quake that killed more than 2,400 and triggering fresh avalanches at Everest base camp, as rescuers dug through rubble in the devastated capital Kathmandu.
Terrified residents, many forced to camp out in the capital after Saturday’s quake reduced buildings to rubble, were jolted by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock that compounded the worst disaster to hit the impoverished Himalayan nation in more than 80 years.
At overstretched hospitals, where medics were also treating patients in hastily erected tents, staffs were forced to flee buildings for fear of further collapses.
“Electricity has been cut off, communication systems are congested and hospitals are crowded and are running out of room for storing dead bodies,” Oxfam Australia chief executive Helen Szoke told AFP.
Climbers reported that the aftershock caused more avalanches at Mount Everest, just after helicopters airlifted to safety those injured when a wall of snow hit base camp on Saturday, killing at least 18 people.
The deadliest disaster in Everest’s history comes almost exactly a year after an avalanche killed 16 sherpa guides, forcing the season to be cancelled, and as around 800 mountaineers were gathered at the start of the new season.
AFP’s Nepal bureau chief Ammu Kannampilly, who was on assignment at base camp, reported that six helicopters had managed to reach the mountain on Sunday after the weather improved.
The Kathmandu-based National Emergency Operation Centre put the toll in Nepal at 2,352 and said a further 6,239 had been injured.
Officials in India said the toll there now stood at 67, while Chinese state media said 18 people had been killed in the Tibet region.

AFP correspondents in Kathmandu reported that tremors were felt throughout the day, including one strong aftershock at dawn before the 6.7-magnitude follow-up quake that struck in the afternoon.
Police said around 150 people were thought to have been in the tower at the time of the disaster, based on ticket sales.
“At least 30 dead bodies have been pulled out. We don’t have a number on the rescued but over 20 injured were helped out,” Bishwa Raj Pokharel, a local police official, told AFP.

 Nepal and the rest of the Himalayas are particularly prone to earthquakes because of the collision of the Indian and Eurasia plates.
An 6.8 magnitude quake hit eastern Nepal in August 1988 killing 721 people, and a magnitude 8.1 quake killed 10,700 people in Nepal and India in 1934.