A trekker stranded for days in quake-hit Nepal has said he watched boulders the size of minivans smash buildings in a popular tourist area devastated by a massive avalanche, living to tell the tale using skills learnt from U.S. reality TV show "Survivor".

American Corey Ascolani described to Agence France Presse how he spent five terrifying days in the remote tourist area of Langtang following the April 25 quake, which trapped hundreds of tourists and Nepalis.

Nepalese authorities said Tuesday that a vast army of emergency workers was finally managing to deliver aid to stranded survivors of a massive earthquake as the death toll from the disaster rose to 7,557.

The government said that more than 131,500 Nepalese military and police personnel were now taking part in the massive aid operation in the vast Himalayan nation, aided by more than 100 teams of foreign relief workers.

The number of EU citizens missing in the massive Nepal earthquake has fallen dramatically to around 60 from about 1,000 last week, European sources said Monday.

"The number of EU citizens who are still unaccounted for has gone down to around 60. These are people who were reported to be in Nepal at the moment of the earthquake and with whom contact could not yet be established," one source told AFP.

U.S. military helicopters began reconnaissance trips Monday to assess remote areas of Nepal devastated by an earthquake that killed more than 7,300 people, an official said.

Nine days after a 7.8-magnitude quake brought death and destruction to the Himalayan nation, the helicopters surveyed mountain villages.

Rescuers have pulled a 101-year-old man alive from his ruined home a week after Nepal's earthquake claimed at least 7,200 lives, as the government warned Sunday the death toll will climb "much higher."

Funchu Tamang was rescued on Saturday from the rubble of his house with only minor injuries to his ankle and hand, after the quake ripped through the impoverished country on April 25.

The death toll from an earthquake that ripped through Nepal will climb "much higher", the government warned Sunday, as relief teams raced to reach survivors of the disaster that has already claimed more than 7,000 lives.

Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat said the toll will jump once teams reached far-flung villages feared flattened in the worst quake to hit the impoverished Himalayan nation in more than 80 years. 

One week on from an earthquake that killed more than 6,700 people, Nepal ruled out finding more survivors buried in the ruins of Kathmandu Saturday despite relatives refusing to give up hope.

Two days after any signs of life had been detected among the mountains of rubble that litter the capital, the focus was shifting to reaching survivors in far-flung areas who have yet to receive relief supplies.

A thousand European Union citizens in Nepal are still unaccounted for, nearly a week after a massive quake that hit during the peak trekking season, the EU ambassador to Nepal said Friday.

Most were trekking in the remote Langtang mountain range near the epicenter or in the Everest region, Rensje Teerink told journalists in Kathmandu.

At Pokhara airport in the Himalayas, Indian soldiers race back and forth loading rice, blankets, tarpaulins and other aid onto waiting helicopters for delivery to Nepal's quake-devastated villages.

In the ruined ancient town of Bhaktapur outside the capital Kathmandu, Chinese rescuers in blue uniforms search for survivors in the rubble of toppled temples and homes.

Desperate survivors living at ground zero of Nepal's earthquake felt abandoned to their fate Friday after losing their loved ones and livelihoods in a disaster that has claimed more than 6,300 lives.

While the joyous rescue of two survivors reinvigorated the search for further signs of life in the ruins of Kathmandu, the Red Cross warned of "total devastation" in far-flung areas of the poor Himalayan nation.