Nepal quake: When a man drank urine to stay alive for three days under rubble

Kathmandu: In yet another gut-wrenching story tumbling out of Nepal earthquake rubble, a man is said to have drunk his urine to stay alive for more than eighty hours buried under a collapsed hotel.

Talking to a news agency, the man named Rishi Khanal described how he survived for more than three days after a deadly 7.9 magnitude quake wrecked havoc throughout Nepal.

Describing the horrific scene beneath the debris, he recounted how he was surrounded by a pile of dead bodies with intense stench. He said his lips cracked and nails turned white, adding that he had to drink his own urine to survive.

He said he had given up all hope 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.

He's now being treated for leg injuries at a hospital in the capital the day after French rescuers found him and brought him out from a collapsed hotel. He had been buried for 82 hours.

Frantic search and rescue efforts continue four days after the deadly quake struck Nepal. So far over 5000 have been confirmed dead.