Death toll tops 2,500

The Kathmandu-based National Emergency Operation Center puts the toll in Nepal at 2,430 while around 6,000 more people were injured.

Officials in India say the toll there now stood at 67, while Chinese state media say 18 people had been killed in the Tibet region.

“We have deployed all our resources for search and rescues,” police spokesman Kamal Singh Bam tells 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.”

Powerful aftershocks trigger new avalanches at Everest base camp, as mass cremations are held in the devastated capital Kathmandu.

At overstretched hospitals, where medics are also treating patients in hastily erected tents, staff are forced to flee buildings for fear of further collapses.

“Electricity has been cut off, communication systems are congested and hospitals are crowded and are running out of room for storing dead bodies,” Oxfam Australia chief executive Helen Szoke tells AFP.

— AFP