Man pulled from rubble after 82 hours as Nepal death toll passes 5,000

A man pulled from the rubble of a collapsed hotel by a French rescue team more than three days after the deadly Nepal earthquake says he was forced to drink his own urine to survive.

Meanwhile, the death toll has passed the 5,000 mark, officials have said.

Rishi Khanal, 27, had just finished lunch at a hotel in Kathmandu and had gone up to the second floor when everything suddenly started to move and fall apart.

He was struck by falling masonry and trapped with his foot crushed under rubble.

“I had some hope but by yesterday I’d given up. My nails went all white and my lips cracked ... I was sure no one was coming for me. I was certain I was going to die,” he told reporters from his hospital bed today.

He was surrounded by dead people and a terrible smell. But he kept banging on the rubble all around him and eventually this brought a French rescue team that extracted him after an operation lasting many hours.

By the time he was pulled out, he had been trapped – in what could have become his tomb – for 82 hours.

“There was no sound going out, or coming in. I kept banging against the rubble and finally someone responded and came to help. I hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink so I drank my own urine.”

It was not clear if he was a hotel employee or a guest.

“It feels good. I am thankful,” he said. He was taken away for surgery before more details could be obtained.

More than 4,700 people are known to have died and over 8,000 injured in the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that also caused deaths in India and Tibet. But an overwhelming majority were in Nepal.

Meanwhile, police in Nepal have arrested more than 30 people on suspicion of looting abandoned homes as well as causing panic by spreading rumours of another big quake.

Police official Bigyan Raj Sharma said 27 were detained for stealing from homes whose owners had moved out following Saturday’s quake.

The aftershocks have waned but people are still anxious, many preferring to stay out in the open. Mr Sharma said four people were arrested for spreading false rumours of an impending quake through social media and text messages.