While the devastated rural villages and towns continue to suffer, the performance of the government in Kathmandu raises fears of massive corruption.

CHAUTARA, Nepal—The immensity of the Nepal earthquake did not really hit me until i crossed the Dholaghat River, about 40 kilometers east of Kathmandu, and made my way into the hills—the "mid-hills" as they are called in this Himalayan nation. The river here carves a deep chasm with sheer cliffs on both sides. Fresh landslides cover partial sections of the hairpin road.

A path of utter destruction begins here. Over 30 miles of mangled houses, wood and brick structures collapsed in unforgiving mounds, concrete two-story buildings literally lifted up and then pushed back into the earth, and everywhere just rubble. Women and children sit listless under the sacred, ubiquitous Pipal trees or on the sides of the road. It is a land devoid of young men—many of them are in the Middle East working menial jobs. 

In one hamlet, Pawakot, I am greeted by Pamphagiri, 72, who is barely five feet tall and distraught as she tells me she is alone. One daughter was buried when her house collapsed, and the other is in a hospital. Aid has yet to arrive here. The smell of rotting animal meat, cows and goats that have been buried in a collapsed structure, envelops us. I give her some money. We touch foreheads and we hug before I move on, heading to the district capital of Sindhupalchok, a town called Chautara.

The path of destruction continues among leveled hamlets in all directions, the piled debris on the road ruins of houses visible across the mountainsides.