About 100 bodies found in Nepal trekking village
Nepali police and local volunteers found the bodies of about 100 trekkers and villagers buried in an avalanche set off by last month's devastating earthquake and were digging through snow and ice for signs of dozens more missing, officials said on May 4.
The government began asking foreign teams to wrap up search and rescue operations, as hope of finding people alive in the rubble receded.
"They can leave. If they are also specialists in clearing the rubble, they can stay," Rameshwor Dangal, an official at Nepal's home ministry, told Reuters on May 4.
The trekkers' bodies were recovered on May 2 and May 3 at the Langtang village, 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Kathmandu, which is on a trekking route popular with Westerners. The entire village, which includes 55 guesthouses for trekkers, was wiped out by the avalanche, officials said.
It was not clear how many people were in Langtang at the time of the avalanche but other officials said about 120 more people could be buried under the snow.
The April 25 earthquake has killed 7,366 people and wounded nearly 14,500, Nepal's government said. The disaster has prompted an international relief and rescue effort.
A European Union source on May 4 revised sharply downwards to about 60 the number of citizens from the 28-nation bloc still unaccounted for. Last week, a senior EU source had estimated around 1,000 EU citizens were missing after the quake.
A US State Department spokesman said helicopters chartered by the embassy in Kathmandu had rescued 17 US citizens in total from remote areas hit by the quake. The United States has provided US$14.2 million in humanitarian aid since the quake.
In Brussels, the EU's humanitarian aid chief Christos Stylianides, just back from a visit to Nepal, said the European Commission had approved EUR16.6 million (US$18.5 million) of financial support to Nepal and another 3 million euros of emergency aid, bringing total help so far to 22.6 million euros.
The United Nations has said 8 million of Nepal's 28 million people were affected by the quake, with at least 2 million needing tents, water, food and medicines over the next three months.
More than half a million children are being vaccinated to prevent measles outbreaks, the UNICEF said in a statement on May 4. Around 1.7 million children remain in urgent need of humanitarian aid in the worst-hit areas, it added.