There was some heartening news in Nepal Wednesday when a man was pulled from the rubble of a collapsed hotel by a French rescue team more than three days after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake, which has left more than 5,000 dead.

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 The Associated Press from his hospital bed on Wednesday, surrounded by his family.

The rescue, which reportedly took five hours, was captured on video by police who posted it to Facebook.

यसरी भयो ॠषि खनालको ४ दिन पछी जिबितै उद्दार(Rescued Man Alive after 4 days of Deadly Earthquake) Posted by Armed Police Force, Nepal on Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Khanal 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," he said. It was not clear if he was a hotel employee or a guest.

"It feels good. I am thankful."

A doctor who treated the man said it seemed that he survived by sheer willpower, according to The Guardian. It's been reported that he may have a broken leg.

Nepalese police said Wednesday the death toll from the quake had reached 4,989. Another 18 were killed on the slopes of Mount Everest, while 61 died in neighboring India, and China's official Xinhua News Agency reported 25 dead in Tibet.

The disaster also injured more than 10,000, police said, and rendered thousands more homeless. The U.N. says the disaster has affected 8.1 million people — more than a fourth of Nepal's population of 27.8 million — and that 1.4 million needed food assistance.

Aid reached a hilly district near the epicenter of Nepal's earthquake for the first time Wednesday. But it will still take time for the food and other supplies to reach survivors in remote communities who have been cut off by landslides, warned Geoff Pinnock, a World Food Program emergencies officer.

"It doesn't happen overnight," said Pinnock from the village of Majuwa, 20 kilometers (16 miles) downhill from Gorkha town, a staging area for relief efforts to areas worst-hit by the quake.

Nearby, five cargo trucks filled with rice, cooking oil and sugar stood on a grassy field fringed with banana and acacia trees beneath the soaring Himalayas, waiting for a helicopter carry the supplies to remote, quake-hit villages.

Soon, the U.N. food agency was expected to deliver shipments of high-energy food biscuits to be sent out to areas without enough water for cooking, Pinnock said. The first aid shipments had reached Dhading district, just east of Gorhka, he said.

Anger is growing in Kathmandu.

About 200 people blocked traffic in Kathmandu protesting the slow pace of aid delivery. The protesters faced off with police and there were minor scuffles but no arrests were made. One protester says they haven't received any relief.

"We are hungry, we haven't had anything to drink. We haven't been able to sleep. I have a 7-year-old child who is sleeping in the open. It's getting cold and people are getting pneumonia," he said. He accused the government of not doing enough.

There were reports on social media that riot police were deployed amid growing unrest.

Riots. We just got attacked in car after this. Just got through safe but not great situation right now. pic.twitter.com/kJ0U5Tq3u2 — Siobhan Heanue (@siobhanheanue) April 29, 2015

In the village of Paslang, three kilometers (1.8 miles) above Gorkha, there was almost nothing left but enormous piles of broken red bricks and heaps of mud and dust.

One of those piles was once Bhoj Kumar Thapa's home, where his pregnant wife pushed their 5-year-old daughter to safety in a last, desperate act before it collapsed and killed her during Saturday's earthquake.

Thapa and others in Paslang were still waiting Tuesday for the government to deliver food, tents — any kind of aid — to this poor mountain village near the epicenter of the quake that killed more than 4,700 people, injured over 8,000 and left tens of thousands homeless.

Families in Paslang have been hard hit by the quake.

"When I got home, there was nothing," said Thapa, an army soldier. "Everything was broken. My wife — she was dead."

He was put on leave from his army unit to mourn, one of the few Nepalese soldiers not deployed in the country's massive rescue and recovery operation. But instead of sadness, there is anger.

"Only the other villagers who have also lost their homes are helping me. But we get nothing from the government," Thapa said.

An official came, took some pictures and left — without delivering anything to the village of about 300 people northwest of the capital of Kathmandu, he said.

"I get angry, but what can I do? I am also working for the government," Thapa said. "I went to ask the police if they could at least send some men to help us salvage our things, but they said they have no one to send."

The villagers have no idea when they might get help and are still sleeping together in the mud and sharing whatever scraps of food they can pull from beneath their ruined buildings. Three people in the hamlet have died.

Survivors being evacuated from Kathmandu to New Delhi. Image: Altaf Qadri/Associated Press

Officials and foreign aid workers who have rushed to Nepal following the quake are struggling against stormy weather, poor roads and a shortage of manpower and funds to get assistance to the needy. On Tuesday, the district managed to coordinate 26 helicopter trips to remote villages to evacuate 30 injured people before a major downpour halted the effort.

"We need 15,000 plastic tarps alone. We cannot buy that number," said Mohan Pokhran, a district disaster management committee member. Only 50 volunteer army and police officers are distributing food and aid for thousands in the immediate vicinity, he said.

"We don't have nearly enough of anything," Pokhran said.

In Kathmandu Wednesday, thousands of people were lining up at bus stations, hoping to reach their hometowns in rural areas. Some have had little news of family and loved ones since Saturday's quake. Others are scared of staying close to the epicenter, northwest of Kathmandu.

"I am hoping to get on a bus, any bus heading out of Kathmandu. I am too scared to be staying in Kathmandu," said Raja Gurung, who wanted to get to his home in western Nepal. "The house near my rented apartment collapsed. It was horrible. I have not gone indoors in many days. I would rather leave than a live a life of fear in Kathmandu."

More tragedy stuck Tuesday: A mudslide and avalanche struck near the village of Ghodatabela and 250 people were feared missing, district official Gautam Rimal said. Heavy snow had been falling, and the ground may have been loosened by the quake.

Survivors walk through collapsed homes in Paslang. Image: Wally Santana/Associated Press

While many across Nepal are opting to sleep outdoors for fear of the constant aftershocks, those in Paslang have no choice because almost no buildings are left standing. At night, survivors huddle together against the cold, rain and mosquitoes, and wait until dawn.

Tilak Bahadur Rana, a farmer, still has a tin roof over his head but the cold rain leaks through.

"In any case, I can't sleep. I am too stressed. I worry about how I will feed my family," he said.

Some in Paslang have seen sacks of food being flown by helicopter to remote regions reachable only by air, without stopping. The arrival in the village of a diesel generator Tuesday, brought by "a nice charity man" from a foreign aid group that no one could identify, brought moments of much-needed elation as dozens crowded around to charge their cellphones on four attached power sockets.

Sitting in the mud and sharing tea made over an open fire with his wife and children, Rana confessed he was losing heart.

"Because of this earthquake, the whole village is destroyed. We need food," he said. "We need a place to sleep, or compensation for all we have lost."

Additional reporting by Mashable

