KATHMANDU, April 30. /TASS/. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry is considering evacuating another 42 Russians who have expressed a wish to leave Nepal after a devastating earthquake.
"The Russian Emergencies Ministry’s operational group continues to work at the Russian embassy in Kathmandu, processing information about Russian citizens who want to leave Nepal," Alexander Romanov, head of the ministry’s rescue team, told TASS on Thursday.
He said that the operational group also maintained contact with several groups of Russian tourists staying in various remote areas across Nepal, noting that if they needed help and assistance in evacuation, they would be taken to the capital Kathmandu.
Deputy Emergencies Minister Vladimir Stepanov told journalists on Thursday that it had become possible to contact some 40 Russians the ministry had been trying to reach since Wednesday.
"We have data about the locations of some 40 people we talked about yesterday and we will take measures to bring them all to the airport and evacuate them from there," Stepanov said, adding that all the people were "alive and well".
The 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit Nepal on Saturday destroying buildings in Kathmandu and severely affecting rural areas across the region. Some 1,900 houses have been ruined and at least 4,000 others have been damaged.
The death toll has risen to more than 5,000 now, with more than 10,000 injured, officials say.
The UN estimates that eight million people in 39 districts have been affected by the earthquake - more than a quarter of the population.
Among the dead are nearly 80 climbers who were at Mount Everest base camp when it was hit by an avalanche triggered by the quake.
Tremors were felt in India’s capital New Delhi and its eastern, northern and north-eastern states, where 70 people were killed and more than 250 injured, as well as in Myanmar, Bangladesh and Tibet.