12:50 p.m. (0705 GMT)

Nepalese police say the boy who was pulled from rubble five days after the earthquake is an 18-year-old who made it alive by “good faith.”

Nepalese police officer L. B. Basnet says he spoke to the boy who gave his name as Pemba Tamang.

Basnet says: “”He thanked me when I first approached him. … He was really responsive. He told me his name, his address, and I gave him some water. I assured him we were near to him.”

The rescue operation was led by a Nepalese team with American responders from the U.S. Agency for International Development assisting them.

Basnet wore a headlamp and was dressed in blue camouflage uniform. He crawled into the hole to get the boy out.

— Todd Pitman, Kathmandu, Nepal

___

12:10 p.m. (0625 GMT)

A teenage boy has been pulled out from the rubble of a Kathmandu building five days after the earthquake.

Waiting crowds roared and cheered as the boy was carried out in a stretcher. His face was covered in dust, and medics put an IV drop into his arm. A blue brace was placed around his neck. He appeared stunned, and his eyes blinked in the sunlight.

A USAID team was working at the scene for several hours to try to free the boy.

Team leader Andrew Olvera said before the rescue that the boy was not very deep, but he was trapped between two collapsed floors.

— Todd Pitman, Kathmandu, Nepal

___

11:55 a.m. (0610 GMT)

A team of U.S. rescuers is working on pulling out a 15-year-boy who has been buried in the rubble of a collapsed home.

They were inspecting another site in Kathmandu on Thursday when a Nepalese team with them said a 15-year-old boy was alive and trapped in a nearby building.

USAID team leader Andrew Olvera says: “We have lights, we have generators, we have heavy breaching equipment, jackhammers, and we’re trying to get him out.”

He says the boy is not too far down, but the floors have collapsed and “he’s pancaked between them.”

The team has dropped medical supplies and IV fluid to team members who went down inside, including a U.S. firefighter medic who is part of the team. It’s unclear if the boy was able to receive them.

The team also stuck a rotatable camera on a pole into the hole to see how best to get him out.

The site is dangerous. Olvera says it looks like it used to be a seven-story building with concrete slabs hanging down.

— Todd Pitman, Kathmandu, Nepal

___

11 a.m. (0515 GMT)

European plane maker Airbus is providing helicopters, planes and satellite imagery for relief efforts in Nepal.

Airbus Helicopters is offering aircraft for French rescue missions to locate and retrieve anyone trapped in difficult-to-reach areas, according to the French Foreign Ministry.

Airbus’ defence and space business is offering satellite imagery to help assess damage and help rescuers target and deliver aid.

France-based Airbus and its charitable arm plan to use a new Nepal Airlines A320 to bring medical supplies and aid workers to Kathmandu.

— Angela Charlton, Paris

___

10 a.m. (0415 GMT)

In quake-wracked Nepal, everyone who is able is joining the aid effort.

The 32-year-oid Narayan Thapa was working at a tire factory in Gorkha town when the earthquake destroyed his village of Bungkot, around 45 kilometres (28 miles) away.

“Everything is destroyed. Not even one home is standing. We think there is still one person dead under the rubble,” Thapa said.

Thapa and his friends are scrambling to find a four-wheel vehicle to carry the medicine and food they’ve cobbled together to the village.

“People are hungry there, they are suffering. I’m doing whatever I can to help,” he said.

Among those in desperate need of supplies in Bungkot, with a population of about 300, are Thapa’s parents, wife and daughter.

“My friends are helping me. Everyone is doing whatever they can. We managed to send a little bit yesterday. My family — they’re relying on me. There is no food. They are in trouble there,” Thapa said.

— Katy Daigle in Gorkha, Nepal

___

9 a.m. (0315 GMT)

Despite a steady morning drizzle, hundreds of people are lining up in central Kathmandu hoping to get on government-run bus service so they can visit their homes in remote parts of the quake-hit country.

“I have to get out of here, I have to get home. It has already been so many days,” said Shanti Kumari, a housewife, heading to join the line with her 7-year-old daughter. Kumari, a Kathmandu resident, said she was desperate to check on her family in her village in eastern Nepal. “I want to get at least a night of peace,” she said.

Over the past few days, the government has been running school buses free of charge for people wishing to travel to remote villages, worst-hit by Saturday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake.

Five days after the quake, tents at the Tudikhel grounds, in the heart of Kathmandu, thinned out by Thursday morning. Overnight rainfall forced people to return to their homes, many of which were damaged in the quake.

Nepal’s weather office predicted rain all day Thursday, with the weather was expected to improve later in the day or Friday.

— Binaj Gurubacharya, Kathmandu, Nepal

___

7:45 a.m. (0200 GMT)

Police in Nepal say the death toll from Saturday’s earthquake has topped 5,500.

The Kathmandu police say 5,489 have died and another 11,440 people have been injured in Nepal.

The quake that was centred just outside Kathmandu also triggered an avalanche that killed at least 19 people at the Everest base camp.

Another 61 were killed in neighbouring India and Bangladesh, and China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported 25 dead in Tibet.

— Binaj Gurubacharya, Kathmandu, Nepal

___

12:07 a.m. (1822 GMT)

Chinese authorities have closed all climbing on the Tibetan side of Mount Everest for the spring.

Meanwhile, some climbers in Nepal have announced plans to try to return to the mountain, a move that was criticized by others in the climbing community.

No one climbing on the north side was injured following Saturday’s deadly quake. But climbing guide Adrian Ballinger says Chinese officials announced their decision to end the climbing season.

Ballinger said two reasons were cited: Safety concerns over possible additional earthquakes and solidarity with Nepal and the Sherpas.

China reported has 25 deaths in Tibet from the quake.

___

11:46 p.m. (1758 GMT)

President Barack Obama has spoken to Prime Minister Sushil Koirala of Nepal to express sympathy over the thousands of deaths and vast destruction.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest says the two leaders discussed U.S. military and civilian efforts already underway to help Nepal and international aid groups in their emergency rescue and response.

They discussed the ongoing efforts by U.S. civilian and military personnel to assist the government of Nepal and international organizations in the disaster response efforts, including provision of rescue and logistics support.

___

8 p.m. (1415 GMT)

The Nepal Mountaineering Association has increased to 19 the number of fatalities from the avalanche on Mount Everest.

It said Wednesday that five of the dead were foreign climbers and 14 were Nepalese Sherpa guides.

The avalanche triggered by Saturday’s 7.8-magnitude quake also injured dozens of people when it swept through base camp, knocking over tents and people.

The association said 10 Sherpas have been identified. The Americans were Daniel Fredinburg and Marisa Eve Girawong, and the other foreigners were Ge Zhenfang from China, Renu Fotedar from Australia and Hiroshi Yamagata from Japan.

All climbers have now left Everest, ending the climbing season early for the second year. Last year, climbs were cancelled after 16 Sherpa guides were killed in an avalanche while hauling gear between camps.

Hundreds of people attempt to scale the world’s tallest mountain each year, and Nepal earns significant income from the permit fees.

— Binaj Gurubacharya, Kathmandu, Nepal

___

7:30 p.m. (1345 GMT)

The tiny hamlets clinging to the mountainsides of Gorkha District were ravaged by the earthquake. But lives were spared.

Entire clusters of homes are piles of stone and splintered wood. Orange plastic tarps now dot the cliffs and terraced rice paddies carved into the Himalayan land.

But the death toll in villages like Gumda was far lower than feared. The quake on Saturday struck at midday, and many people were working outdoors in the rural region in spring.

Of Gumda’s 1,300 residents, five were killed in the quake and 20 more were injured. The official overall toll as of Wednesday evening exceeded 5,100 in Nepal, India and Tibet.

— Katy Daigle, Gumda, Nepal

___

7:15 p.m. (1330 GMT)

The United Nations is appealing for $415 million to provide for vital needs in Nepal over the next three months.

It intends to support government efforts in provide shelter, water and sanitation, emergency health, food, and protection.

The U.N.’s humanitarian co-ordinator for Nepal, Jamie McGoldrick, said the response to date was encouraging, but those efforts need to be maintained, especially in remote areas.

He noted that the coming monsoon season would like add a logistical challenge to relief efforts, adding to the urgency.

___

6:45 p.m. (1300 GMT)

Helicopters have rescued some 210 foreign trekkers and local villagers stranded in the Lantang area north of Nepal’s capital.

The international trekkers were stranded in Langtang, a popular trekking route bordering Tibet, since the earthquake on Saturday that killed more than 5,000 people.

Government administrator Gautam Rimal said the trekkers and villagers were flown to the nearby town of Dhunche. But with landslides cutting off the roads from there to Kathmandu, the trekkers will have to trudge for at least four hours before they can board a bus to the Nepalese capital.

— Binaj Gurubacharya, Kathmandu, Nepal

___

6 p.m. (1215 GMT)

The number of people missing after a mudslide struck a village in central Nepal appears to be lower than first thought.

The government had said Tuesday that 250 people were missing after a mudslide and avalanche hit the village of Ghodatabela near the quake epicenter.

Government administrator Gautam Rimal said on Wednesday, however, “We believe now there are only a few people who were swept by the mudslide.”

Authorities withdrew the figure of 250 after getting more information from local residents, but Rimal didn’t have an amended figure.

— Binaj Gurubacharya, Kathmandu, Nepal

___

4 p.m. (1015 GMT)

Nepalese rescue helicopters are taking advantage of breaks in the rain to bring out the injured from remote mountain villages where aid is only beginning to trickle in, four days after the massive earthquake.

A rescue mission on Wednesday landed in the village of Darkha, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of the capital, Kathmandu, and unloaded boxes of aid supplies. Nepalese soldiers disembarked and carried back on a stretcher the 69-year-old Ek Bahadur Thapa and others in need of treatment.

He suffered leg injuries and has had to wait for medical care.

The government says more than 10,000 people were injured.

— Upendra Mansingh, Darkha, Nepal