Nepal earthquake: Death toll passes 4,600 as rescuers face challenges
Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN) More than 4,600 people died. Over 9,000 injured. Eight million affected across Nepal. One million families instantly in need of help.
Those are the startling statistics that specify the scale of the devastation from the huge earthquake that hit the Himalayan country on Saturday.
And some of the grim statistics are likely to get even worse as expectations of rescuing any more survivors diminish each hour.
Heart-breaking sections of suffering and loss are playing out crossways this shell-shocked state as it reels from its lethal natural disaster in more than 80 years.
Relief efforts continued Tuesday, but administrators cautioned that they were hampered by difficulties of getting aid into the country and then transporting it to some of the remote groups in desperate need.
In Kathmandu, a capital city of shattered place of worship and toppled houses, some people paid their last respects to loved ones taken by the quake.
By the Bagmati River, which winds through the city, more than a dozen funeral pyres marked Monday.
As workers stoked the flames for the Hindu cremation ceremonies, some widows shaved their heads — a old-style show of mourning from children who lose their parents.
Alongside their father, two teenage brothers after the Gurung family, Ishan and Iman, said goodbye to their mother, Ishara.
“We never abstract this would happen to us. This much pain,” said Ishan, the elder of the two.
