The Albany Gazette - Delivering aid to Nepal flood survivors 'very, very difficult': UN

More than 1,200 people have been killed and nearly 5,000 are missing on both sides of the China-Nepal border since the catastrophic glacial mountain collapse on August 26, according to tolls by both nations on Thursday.

Nearly 600 foreigners from at least 34 countries are among those missing.

"It is just incredible -- the magnitude of the disaster, the magnitude of the destruction," UN Resident Coordinator Lila Pieters Yahia told reporters in Kathmandu.

"Access has been very, very, very difficult," Pieters Yahia said, noting that UN agencies had delivered water and and sanitation kits, as well as food and medicine.

"Those are the most essential, particularly for the people who are in the epicentre."

The search for the missing continues.

In Kathmandu, desperate families of some of the missing foreigners said they were combing hospitals and morgues for any information.

"I feel desperate, it's been so many days," said 53-year-old US citizen Sanjeev Rai who flew to Nepal to look for his wife, one of around 75 Americans missing.

Isolated communities near the epicentre remain cut off, with the UN working alongside Nepal's government to get emergency supplies into devastated areas.

Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal, in a briefing to diplomats in Kathmandu on Thursday, called it a "Himalayan tsunami".

"I can say from first-hand observation that the reality on the ground is far more severe than images can convey," he said. "This is not an ordinary flood".

- 'Scale and complexity' -

"Nepal has mobilised all resources at its disposal, but we recognise that the scale and complexity of this disaster require international solidarity and support," foreign ministry spokesman Lok Bahadur Poudel Chhetri told reporters on Thursday.

"The extent of the damage to houses, roads, bridges, hydropower facilities and other critical impact structures is extremely huge."

Chhetri repeated calls for specialised international assistance, including heavy-lift drones and temporary bridges, as well as body bags and DNA testing kits to help identify the dead.

He said Nepal also needed a mobile air traffic control system and broadband seismometers to monitor ground vibrations.

More than 21,000 Nepali security personnel are working on search, rescue and relief operations.

Nepali rescuers, aided by experts from India, China and South Korea, continue searching for survivors feared trapped inside hydropower tunnels, but teams have repeatedly hit dead ends, and no one has been confirmed alive.

Floods tore through mountain districts, and destroyed roads, bridges and and hydropower dams.

"We've been discussing with the government how also to use helicopters and cargo drones to be able to deliver aid," Pieters Yahia told reporters.

- 'As soon as possible' -

The UN may also turn to Nepal's porters, accustomed to carrying heavy loads through some of the world's toughest mountain terrain during trekking and climbing expeditions.

"The beauty of your country is you have porters," she added, saying the UN may also use "those very simple means to bring the aid as soon as possible."

Pieters Yahia warned that gaps in assistance were inevitable given the scale of the catastrophe.

"The magnitude of the disaster is so big that there will be always gaps," she said.

Nepal's disaster authority said Thursday that the number of bodies recovered was 1,252, with 4,216 people missing.

In China, state media say 21 people had bene killed, and 541 people are missing.

That takes the overall toll to 1,273 people, with at least 4,757 people missing

(W.Williams--TAG)