Aid pours in for Nepal quake victims
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Kathmandu (AFP) - Offers of help poured in from around the world, with the United States and European Union announcing they were sending in disaster response teams.
India flew out its stranded citizens in military planes while a 62-strong Chinese rescue team arrived with sniffer dogs.
National police spokesman Kamal Singh Bam said the number known to have died in Nepal had risen to 2,152 while 4,629 people had been injured.
Officials in India said the toll there now stood at 57, while Chinese state media said 17 people had been killed in the Tibet region.
"We have deployed all our resources for search and rescues," Bam told AFP. "Helicopters have been sent to remote areas. We are sifting through the rubble where buildings have collapsed to see if we can find anyone."
The Red Cross said it was concerned about the fate of villages near the epicentre of the quake northwest of Kathmandu.
The country's cellphone network was working only sporadically, while large parts of the capital were without electricity.
- Devastation in Kathmandu -
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AFP correspondents in Kathmandu reported that tremors were felt throughout the night, including one strong aftershock at dawn before the 6.7-magnitude follow-up quake that struck in the afternoon.
"It has been a sleepless night, how can we sleep? It has been shaking all night. We are just praying that this will end and we can return home," said Nina Shrestha, a 34-year-old banker who spent the night with hundreds of people on open ground in the capital's Tudhikhel district.
The historic nine-storey Dharahara tower, a major tourist attraction, was among the buildings brought down in Kathmandu Saturday, with at least a dozen bodies recovered from the ruins of the 19th-century structure.
As rescuers sifted through the huge mounds of rubble in the capital, hospitals were overwhelmed with victims who suffered multiple fractures and trauma.
"We have treated many people since yesterday, the majority children," said Samir Acharya, a doctor at Nepal's Annapurna Neurological Hospital.
"Most patients have head injuries or fractures. Two of our patients died, two are critical."
Acharya said medics were working out of a tent set up in a parking lot to cope with the number of injured, while some patients were too scared to stay in the building.
Families had grabbed whatever possessions they could muster and sought shelter on the streets, many of which had been split asunder.
Weather forecasters warned that rain was on the way, with dark clouds looming over Kathmandu and promising more misery for displaced survivors.
