Collapsed buildings in Sankhu, Nepal, after the earthquake. Credit:Getty Images He said two of them were buried under a collapsed mud house, while one was pulled from under the earth after being swept by a landslide triggered by the earthquake. They have been evacuated to the district hospital. Local officials said the death toll in Nepal from last weekend's devastating earthquake had risen to 7040. On Sunday, the Nepalese government warned the death toll would climb "much higher", as relief teams raced to reach survivors.

Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat said the toll would jump once teams reached far-flung villages feared flattened in the worst quake to hit the impoverished Himalayan nation in more than 80 years. "There are still villages where we know that all houses have been destroyed, but have not yet been able to reach," Mr Mahat said. "The aftershocks have not receded and we expect the final casualty numbers to climb much higher." He appealed for hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign donations to help rebuild the devastated country. The 7.8-magnitude quake wreaked a trail of death and destruction when it erupted about midday eight days ago, reducing much of the capital Kathmandu to rubble and triggering a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest. After the government ruled out finding more people buried alive in the ruins of Kathmandu on Saturday, the focus has shifted to delivering food, tents and other relief to thousands in remote areas.

In the hardest-hit districts of Gorkha and Sindhupalchowk, almost 90 per cent of the mostly stone and mud homes have been destroyed, the United Nations said in its latest situation report. "Our priority now is really to try to reach those people [in remote areas], get immediate assistance to them," said Valerie Amos, the UN's head of humanitarian affairs. But Ms Amos said on Saturday that she was worried that the tonnes of foreign aid pouring into Nepal was being held up by red tape. She said she had asked Prime Minister Sushil Koirala to speed up customs clearance for aid materials. "He has undertaken to ensure that happens, so I hope that from now we will see an improvement in those administrative issues," she said.

Planes loaded with relief supplies from around the world were pouring into landlocked Nepal, but there have been numerous reports of many getting stuck at Kathmandu's small international airport, and customs officials stopping trucks filled with aid from crossing into the country from neighbouring India. The airport has been closed to heavy planes because of concerns about the condition of the single runway after the quake and a series of strong aftershocks, said Birendra Shrestha, manager of the Tribhuvan International Airport. "This runway is the only lifeline for Kathmandu. If it goes, everything goes," he said. The death toll from the disaster has hit 7040, according to the Emergency Operations Centre, with more than 14,000 injured. More than 100 were also killed in India and China. Fifty-one bodies, including those of six foreigners, have been found in recent days in the popular Langtang trekking region hit by a quake-triggered avalanche.

In Kathmandu, tens of thousands of survivors have been living out in the open since the quake, having either lost their homes or fearful that aftershocks could bring teetering buildings to the ground. AFP, DPA, AAP