(MENAFN- Arab News) KATMANDU: Rescue workers on Thursday pulled a second survivor from the rubble of a collapsed hotel in Nepal's capital five days after a massive earthquake that killed nearly 6000 people.
Rescuers worked into the night to pull the woman a kitchen worker in her 30s to safety the second such rescue in a day after that of a 15-year-old boy in another hotel just streets away.
Nepalese soldiers and a huge team of experts from France Norway and Israel who had worked on the rescue cheered and clapped as the woman a rare survivor was carried by stretcher to a waiting ambulance.
'She was injured but she was conscious and talking' a Nepal army major told an AFP reporter at the scene.
'She has been sent to a military hospital' he said identifying the woman as a kitchen worker in her mid-30s named Krishna Devi Khadka.
'It is as though she had been born again.'
Earlier US and Nepalese rescuers pulled out 15-year-old survivor Pemba Tamang who told AFP that he stayed alive by eating ghee.
But the recovery of another teenager's body from the same ruins only minutes later underlined how the prospects of finding further survivors of Saturday's 7.8-magnitude quake are becoming more remote.
Away from the capital aid was finally reaching some of Nepal's far-flung towns and villages nestled among mountains and foothills where the extent of the damage and loss of life has yet to be properly assessed.
From an army helicopter flying from Chautara northeast of Katmandu toward the Tibet border a Reuters witness estimated 70 to 80 percent of buildings had been severely damaged.
In a remote village an army medical team treated injured locals and soldiers supervised the unloading of goods on a muddy expanse of ground next to a school that served as a helipad.
In Chautara itself a few people cleared away ruined masonry from the upper floors of their houses and mixed cement by the roadside as the long rebuilding process began.
Many Nepalis have been sleeping in the open since Saturday's quake. According to the United Nations 600000 houses have been destroyed or damaged.
It said eight million people have been affected with at least two million in need of tents water food and medicines over the next three months.
An official from Nepal's home ministry said the number of confirmed deaths from the 7.8 magnitude earthquake had risen to 5858 by Thursday afternoon and almost 13800 were injured. Anger over the pace of the rescue has flared up in some areas with Nepalis accusing the government of being too slow to distribute international aid that flooded into the country.
It has yet to reach many in need particularly in areas hard to access given the quake damage and poor weather.
Tensions between foreigners and Nepalis desperate to be evacuated have also surfaced. In Langtang valley where 150 people are feared trapped a helicopter pilot was taken hostage by locals demanding to be evacuated first one report said.