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[h=4]Aid reaches remote areas as quake death toll tops 5,000[/h]International aid has reached some remote earthquake-affected areas in Nepal, as the death toll rose to more than 5,000 four days after the disaster struck.
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Watch a visual explaination of the Nepal earthquake at Denver's Museum of Nature and Science. VPC
Nepalese soldiers stand next to wrecked buildings at Durbar square, a UNESCO world heritage site that was badly damaged by the earthquake, in the historical center of Kathmandu.(Photo: Philippe Lopez, AFP/Getty Images)
International aid reached some remote earthquake-affected areas in Nepal on Wednesday, as the death toll rose to more than 5,000 four days after the disaster struck.
But help has yet to reach other areas cut off by landslides following Saturday's magnitude-7.8 quake.
"The terrain is such that very remote areas take a very long time to reach and without being there physically we won't be able to reach them, help them, rescue them," Nepal army spokesman Jagdish Chandra Pokherel told the BBC.
"Our troops are trying their best," he added.
The United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator on Tuesday released $15 million to help aid organizations provide immediate assistance. Nepal on Tuesday declared three days of mourning.
Agence France-Press reported that thousands of people gathered at the main bus station of the capital Kathmandu early Wednesday for extra services promised by the government so that people could get home to see their families. AFP reported that scuffles broke out as those services failed to materialize.
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Shankar Pradhan, 49, lost 18 family members, including his 21-year-old daughter, when his brother's house was destroyed.
"I don't know why this happened. But I don't blame anyone. I don't blame the government, I don't blame the gods," he told the Associated Press. "You can't escape the rules of this life. None of us escape the fact that one day you'll have to leave it."
Rishi Khanal, 27, told the AP he drank urine to survive after being trapped in a collapsed hotel where he had spent more than three days. Surrounded by bodies, he banged on rubble until a French rescue team pulled him out.
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"I had some hope but by yesterday I'd given up," he told the news agency from his hospital bed Wednesday. "My nails went all white and my lips cracked … I was sure no one was coming for me. I was certain I was going to die."
Nepal's Prime Minister Sushil Koirala told Reuters on Tuesday that the death toll could reach 10,000. The United Nations estimates that 8 million people in 39 districts have been affected.
Margareta Wahlström, who heads the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, said Nepal raised the issue of a major earthquake at the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan last month.
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"When the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase gets underway it will be an opportunity to build back better and make the country more resilient to disasters," she said.
Among those killed are 18 people, including four Americans, who died on Mount Everest after the quake triggered an avalanche that buried part of the base camp at the world's highest mountain. More than 80 deaths were reported in India and Tibet as tremors from the quake rippled across the region.
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