The chief bureaucrat in Gorkha district, Uddhav Timilsina, said rescue crews were unable even to distribute relief, because they are confronting as many as eight to 10 landslides between one village and its nearest neighbor. He said 250 deaths had been reported so far, but that it would take more time to get an accurate count.

“Phone lines are down, electricity is out, roads are blocked, so what can we do?” he said.

In interviews, residents of hard-hit villages said their plight had not been in the foreground during the early days of the crisis. Prakash Dhakal, a native of the village of Saurpani, was in Katmandu when the earthquake struck, and visited a government office on Sunday to plead with an official to send help.

“I asked them to send 25 young people to help bury our dead and search for the injured,” Mr. Dhakal said. “They told me, ‘We can’t even rescue the injured in Katmandu. How do you expect us to do anything for you now?’ ”