AFP, Hong Kong :International aid groups and governments intensified efforts to get rescuers and supplies into earthquake-hit Nepal on Sunday, but severed communications and landslides in the Himalayan nation posed formidable challenges to the relief effort.As the death toll neared 2,000, the US together with several European and Asian nations sent emergency crews to reinforce those scrambling to find survivors in the devastated capital Kathmandu and in rural areas cut off by blocked roads and patchy phone networks.”Roads have been damaged or blocked by landslides and communication lines are down, preventing us from reaching local Red Cross branches to get accurate information,” said Jagan Chapagain, Asia Pacific director of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).The IFRC said it was extremely concerned about the fate of villages near the epicentre of the quake, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Kathmandu.”We anticipate that there will be considerable destruction and loss of life,” Chapagain added.Other aid organisations also struggled to assess needs across the nation, and spoke of the fearsome effects of the quake.”We witnessed terrible scenes of destruction — hospitals were evacuated with patients being treated on the ground outside, homes and buildings demolished and some roads cracked wide open,” said Eleanor Trinchera, Caritas Australia Program Coordinator for Nepal.A lack of electricity would soon be complicated by a scarcity of water, aid groups said, with medical supplies also dwindling.Survivors slept in the open in Kathmandu overnight, braving the cold for fear of being crushed by the teetering ruins of buildings.Hundreds of structures, including office blocks and a landmark nine-storey tower, crashed to the ground at around midday on Saturday when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck.Google executive Dan Fredinburg was one of the climbers to have been confirmed as having been killed.Also read: Earthquake triggers avalanche at Everest camp; 10 dieA powerful 6.7 magnitude aftershock struck the earthquake-devastated region on Sunday as relief efforts are under way, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said, with climbers reporting the tremor triggered more avalanches on Mount Everest.The latest quake struck northeast of Kathmandu near the border with China at a depth of 10 kilometres, the USGS said.Climber Jim Davidson said he felt the aftershock at Camp One on Everest. “Just had our biggest aftershock yet here at C1 on Everest. Smaller than original quake but glacier shook & avalanches,” he tweeted.These aftershocks are the most powerful to have been registered so far.Also read: Disastrous earthquake in Nepal kills more than 1200, infrastructure collapsesThe magnitude 7.8 earthquake, which was centered outside Kathmandu, the capital, was the worst to hit the South Asian nation in over 80 years. It destroyed swaths of the oldest neighborhoods of Kathmandu, and was strong enough to be felt all across parts of India, Bangladesh, China’s region of Tibet and Pakistan.Meanwhile, nearly 66 lakh people in Nepal have been affected by the devastating earthquake, the United Nations office in Kathmandu said on Sunday.The earthquake triggered an avalanche in the Mount Everest area, burying parts of the Everest base camp.”Rescue and relief operations may be hampered with the monsoon fast approaching,” said the UN.The United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office and other UN agencies will work under the leadership of the Nepal government with the support of a United Nations Disaster Assessment Team.The team arrived in Kathmandu on Sunday to assist in identifying the most immediate need of those affected by Saturday’s quake.The UN Resident Coordinator, Jamie McGoldrick, said: “We are ready to assist the government of Nepal to respond to this terrible tragedy.”It is essential that we move quickly and effectively,” he said.
