The death toll from Nepal's earthquake has jumped to 3,218, a police official said on Monday. The official said 6,538 people have been injured in Saturday's quake, the worst in the country in 81 years. Thousands of desperate Nepalese huddled under tents and sought scarce food and medical supplies on Monday, as overwhelmed authorities struggled to care for the wounded and homeless. The sick and wounded lay out in the open in the capital, Kathmandu, unable to find beds in the devastated city's hospitals. Surgeons set up an operating theatre inside a tent in the grounds of Kathmandu Medical College. "We are overwhelmed with rescue and assistance requests from all across the country," said Deepak Panda, a member of the country's disaster management. Across Kathmandu and beyond, exhausted families whose homes were either flattened or at risk of collapse laid mattresses out on streets and erected tents to shelter from rain. People queued for water dispensed from the back of trucks, while the few stores still open had next to nothing on their shelves. Crowds jostled for medicine at one pharmacy. A tourist makes his way through the debris of a temple after an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal | Reuters Photo

High in the Himalayas, hundreds of foreign and Nepalese climbers remained trapped after a huge avalanche ripped through a base camp for climbers, killing 17 people in the worst single disaster to hit Mount Everest.

The toll is likely to climb as rescuers struggle to reach remote regions in the impoverished, mountainous country of 28 million people and as bodies buried under rubble are recovered.

With so many people sleeping in the open with no power or water and downpours forecast, fears mounted of major food and water shortages. Across Nepal, hundreds of villages have been left to fend for themselves.

Several countries rushed to send aid and personnel.

A child stands inside a makeshift shelter in an open ground to keep safe after an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal | Reuters Photo

India flew in medical supplies and members of its National Disaster Response Force. China sent a 60-strong emergency team. Pakistan's army said it was sending four C-130 aircraft with a 30-bed hospital, search and rescue teams and relief supplies.

A Pentagon spokesman said a U.S. military aircraft with 70 personnel left the United States on Sunday and was due in Kathmandu on Monday. Australia said it was sending a specialist urban search-and-rescue team to Kathmandu at Nepal's request.

Britain, which believes several hundred of its nationals are in Nepal, said it was delivering supplies, medics and search-and-rescue teams.

However, there has been little sign of international assistance on the ground so far, with some aid flights prevented from landing by aftershocks that closed Kathmandu's main airport several times on Sunday.

A man runs past damaged houses as aftershocks of an earthquake are felt a day after the earthquake in Bhaktapur, Nepal | Reuters Photo