Kathmandu: A Nepali-French search and rescue team pulled a 28-year-old man, Rishi Khanal, from a collapsed apartment block in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu on Tuesday after he had spent around 80 hours in a room with three dead bodies.
Khanal appeared to have had no access to food or water during his ordeal, which began at midday on Saturday when a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal, destroying buildings and killing at least 4,600 people.
"It seems he survived by sheer willpower," said Akhilesh Shrestha, a doctor who treated him.
Khanal had been on the second floor of a seven-storey building when the quake struck. The top floors were intact and the teams drilled down to him after he shouted for help and responded to questions in Nepali.
The rescue took five hours. Doctors think he may have a broken leg.
Four days after a devastating earthquake destroyed buildings and roads and killed more than 4,600 people, people stranded in remote villages and towns across Nepal are waiting for aid and relief to arrive.
The government is yet to assess the full scale of the damage wrought by Saturday's 7.9 magnitude quake, unable to reach many mountainous areas despite aid supplies and personnel pouring in from around the world.
Prime Minister Sushil Koirala said the death toll could reach 10,000, as information on damage from far-flung villages and towns has yet to come in.
That would surpass the 8,500 who died in a 1934 earthquake, the last disaster on this scale to hit the Himalayan nation.
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