Kathmandu, April 29 (RHC)-- The death toll from a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Nepal has topped 5,000 with twice that number injured. Aid has reportedly finally reached an area near the epicenter for the first time, four days after the earthquake struck. Remote villages remain cut off from needed supplies.

Jens Laerke of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs called the aid effort a race against time. He told reporters: "The headline is really that this is a race against time. It’s also a race against a moving target, in the sense that we still do not have a full assessment of the needs and the requirements in the rural areas outside of Kathmandu."