7.8 Earthquake Devastates Nepal, Killing More Than 3,300

Nytimes.com

A powerful earthquake shook Nepal on Saturday near its capital, Katmandu... flattening sections of the city’s historic center and trapping dozens of sightseers in a 200-foot watchtower that came crashing down into a pile of bricks...  the quake touched a vast swath of the subcontinent. It set off avalanches around Mount Everest, where several climbers were reported to have died...

Also: Nytimes.com The death toll from Nepal's earthquake soared past 3,300 Monday, and how much higher it would rise depended largely on the condition of vulnerable mountain villages that rescue workers were still struggling to reach two days after the disaster....

Shell-shocked and sleeping in the streets, tens of thousands of Nepalese braced against terrifying aftershocks Sunday while digging for survivors in the devastation wrought a day earlier by a massive earthquake that ripped across this Himalayan nation... Acrid, white smoke rose above the nation's... Hindu temple, where dozens of bodies were being cremated at any given time.

Aid groups received the first word from remote mountain villages — reports that suggested many communities perched on mountainsides were devastated or struggling to cope.

Landslides hindered rescue teams that tried to use mountain trails to reach those in need, said Prakash Subedi, chief district official in the Gorkha region, where the quake was centered...