Aerial views of Nepal’s mountainous Gorkha region – at the epicentre of Saturday’s earthquake, some 100 kilometres northwest of Kathmandu – revealed a scene of utter devastation.
Thousands of homes and most schools in the area are said to have been destroyed.
But information is hard to come by as many rural communities have been cut off. There are reports of villages perched on hillsides being largely destroyed, with survivors facing the threat of mudslides.
On Monday afternoon the Gorkha region’s most senior official, Uddav Timilsina, said relief supplies were yet to arrive as land routes had been blocked by landslides.
In the capital itself, a rare moment of good news as a young man is pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed building by a Turkish rescue team.
He had been buried for more than 36 hours.
But well over 1,000 people are known to have died in Kathmandu, more than 4,000 across the country – and the numbers are certain to rise.
The search effort is often
