Thousands of people in rural communities across Nepal's vast mountainous regions are without shelter, food, and clean water—and, even worse, are completely cut off from the rest of the world—in the wake of Saturday's earthquake.

While reports documenting the destruction have come mainly from the capital Kathmandu, where hundreds of structures were demolished, and from Mount Everest, where an avalanche triggered by the quake killed at least 21 people in Base Camp, attempts to contact mountain villages in many regions has been met with ominous silence.

The road network that connects the Kathmandu Valley—home to approximately 2.5 million people—to rural Nepal is poorly maintained and unreliable even under normal circumstances. With cell networks down and roads and trails severed by