Boy rescued five days after Nepal quake

(Agencies) Updated: 2015-04-30 17:41

Nepalese military personnel load supplies as part of earthquake relief efforts onto an Indian Helicopter in Gorkha, Nepal April 30, 2015.[Photo/Agencies]

"EVERYTHING ON OUR OWN"

In Ashrang village in Gorkha, one of the worst-hit districts about four hours by road from Kathmandu, hundreds of Nepali villagers were living out in the open with little food and water despite boxes of biscuits, juices and sacks of rice and wheat being stored in a nearby government office.

Police commandos shut the high iron gates of the building, refusing people access while they counted the relief supplies.

"We told them we can manage without their help," said Mohammad Ishaq, a school teacher, who had been offered four plastic sheets. "It is as if we are doing everything on our own, feeding our people, tending to the sick."

In Sangachowk village, another badly hit district, a stand-off on Wednesday between soldiers and angry local residents who blocked trucks carrying supplies to earthquake victims was resolved and the vehicles were allowed to pass.

The army promised villagers it would return with aid later.

Foreign rescue teams told government officials their work was nearly done because there was little chance of finding many more survivors.

A Nepali-French rescue team pulled a 28-year-old man, Rishi Khanal, from a collapsed apartment block in Kathmandu on Tuesday after he had spent around 80 hours trapped in a room with three dead bodies.

"I managed to take out the handkerchief from my pocket, soaked it with my urine and squeezed it in my mouth," Khanal told Reuters on Thursday, a day after he had one of his legs amputated. "It gave me some energy to shout and I survived."

But he wondered how he would live with his injury, which would prevent him seeking work in the Middle East as a labourer or on a farm in Nepal.

"I don't even have the money to buy a wheelchair now. How will I spend the rest of my life and support my family?"