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Hands pressed together in supplication, the Nepalese women pleaded for food, shelter and anything else the helicopter might have brought on an in-and-out run Wednesday to the smashed mountain village of Gumda near the epicentre of last weekend's mammoth earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people.

Unlike in Nepal's capital, where most buildings were spared complete collapse, the tiny hamlets clinging to the remote mountainsides of Gorkha District have been ravaged. Entire clusters of homes were reduced to piles of stone and splintered wood. Orange plastic tarps used for shelter now dot the cliff sides and terraced rice paddies carved into the land.

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"We are hungry," cried a woman who gave her name only as Deumaya, gesturing toward her stomach and opening her mouth to emphasize her desperation. Another woman, Ramayana, her eyes hollow and haunted, repeated the plea: "Hungry! We are hungry!"

But food is not the only necessity in short supply out here beyond the reaches of paved roads, electricity poles and other benefits of the modern world. These days, even water is scarce. Communication is a challenge. And modern medical care is a luxury many have never received.

Gumda is one of a handful of villages identified as the worst hit by Saturday's 7.8-magnitude earthquake, from which it will almost certainly take years to recover.

A female villager named Ramaya clasps her hands as she pleads for food after an aid relief helicopter lands at the remote mountain village of Gumda, near the epicentre of Saturday's massive earthquake in the Gorkha District of Nepal, Wednesday, April 29, 2015. (Wally Santana/Associated Press)

As in many villages, though, the death toll in Gumda was far lower than feared, since many villagers were working outdoors when the quake struck at midday. Of Gumda's 1,300 people, five were killed in the quake and 20 more were injured.

As the helicopter landed Wednesday with 40-kilogram sacks of rice, wind and rain whipped across the crest of the mountain. Seeing the conditions, the UN World Food Program's Geoff Pinnock shouted over the roar of the propellers, "the next shipment has to be plastic sheets. These people need shelter more than they need food."

About 200 villagers huddled under a few umbrellas and plastic tarps as they waited to receive the aid, some with runny noses and chattering teeth. With the erratic Himalayan weather, aid workers are worried about keeping people warm, fed and safe.

"More helicopters, more personnel and certainly more relief supplies including medical teams, shelter, tents, water and sanitation and food are obviously needed," said Pinnock, who was coordinating the aid relief flights.

With 8 million Nepalese affected by the earthquake, including 1.4 million needing immediate food assistance, Pinnock said the relief effort would stretch on for months.

"It doesn't happen overnight," he said.

Nepalese police said Wednesday the death toll from the quake had reached 5,027. Another 18 were killed on the slopes of Mount Everest, while 61 died in neighbouring India, and China's official Xinhua News Agency reported 25 dead in Tibet.

The disaster also injured more than 10,000, police said, and rendered thousands more homeless. The UN says the disaster has affected 8.1 million people — more than a fourth of Nepal's population of 27.8 million — and that 1.4 million needed food assistance.

Planes carrying food and other supplies have been steadily arriving at Kathmandu's small airport, but the aid distribution process remains fairly chaotic, with Nepalese officials having difficulty directing the flow of emergency supplies.

Amid an influx of foreign aid and rescue teams into Nepal, a Canadian Forces transport plane carrying relief supplies and an advance crew from a disaster-assistance team landed late Wednesday afternoon at Kathmandu airport . The plane will pick up Canadians who want to leave the city and take them to New Delhi. 

A second Canadian plane is expected to land on Thursday.

About 200 people blocked traffic in the capital Wednesday to protest the slow pace of aid delivery. The protesters faced off with police and there were minor scuffles but no arrests were made.

Police arrested dozens of people on suspicion of looting abandoned homes as well as causing panic by spreading rumors of another big quake. Police official Bigyan Raj Sharma said 27 people were detained for stealing.

But in a sign that life was inching back to normal, banks in Kathmandu opened for a few hours Wednesday and stuffed their ATMs with cash, giving people access to money.

Thousands of people lined up at bus stations in the capital, hoping to reach their hometowns in rural areas. Some have had little news of family and loved ones since Saturday's quake. Others are scared of staying close to the epicentre, northwest of Kathmandu.

"I am hoping to get on a bus, any bus heading out of Kathmandu. I am too scared to be staying in Kathmandu," said Raja Gurung, who wanted to get to his home in western Nepal. "The house near my rented apartment collapsed. It was horrible. I have not gone indoors in many days. I would rather leave than a live a life of fear in Kathmandu."

In some heartening news, French rescuers freed a man from the ruins of a three-story Kathmandu hotel more than three days after the quake. Rishi Khanal, 27, said he drank his own urine to survive.

Nepal military personnel throw a box of relief supplies onto a truck at the Gorkha district office following early Wednesday in Gorkha, Nepal. (Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

Khanal had just finished lunch at a hotel on Saturday and had gone up to the second floor when everything suddenly started moving and falling. He was struck by falling masonry and trapped with his foot crushed under rubble.

"I had some hope but by yesterday I'd given up. My nails went all white and my lips cracked ... I was sure no one was coming for me. I was certain I was going to die," he told The Associated Press from his hospital bed on Wednesday.

Khanal said he was surrounded by dead people and a terrible smell. But he kept banging on the rubble all around him and eventually this brought a French rescue team that extracted him after being trapped for 82 hours.

"I am thankful," he said.

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The health of Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell was the subject of conflicting information with her website stating she is alert and expected to make a full recovery, while a longtime friend stated in a court filing that she was unconscious and unable to care for herself.

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The Grammy winner has been hospitalized since March 31 for undisclosed reasons. Her friend Leslie Morris filed a petition to become Mitchell's guardian on Tuesday, stating that the singer-songwriter was unable to care for herself.

Full recovery 'expected'

Within hours, Mitchell's official website stated that "She comprehends, she's alert and she has her full senses. A full recovery is expected."

Morris' court filing was accompanied by a doctor's declaration stating that Mitchell would be unable to attend a court hearing for four to six months, but it included no additional details on her condition or prognosis. Dr. Paul Vespa checked a box signed on Saturday indicating that Mitchell was unable to participate in her medical care.

"At this time (Mitchell) remains unconscious and unable to make any responses, and is therefore unable to provide for any of her personal needs," states Morris' filing, which was signed by her on Sunday and by her attorney on Monday.

Morris sought a court order because Mitchell does not have any family who can serve as her conservator and assist with her care and medical decisions. Her filing does not seek any control over Mitchell's finances.

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Mitchell's website states Morris' filing seeks to get authority to make decisions for the singer once she leaves the hospital and is isn't under the 24 hour care of a doctor.

"As we all know, Joni is a strong-willed woman and is nowhere near giving up the fight," reads the statement, that is said to have been approved by Morris.

A court hearing on the filing is scheduled for July 8.

Phone messages for Morris and her attorney, Alan Watenmaker, were not returned.

Started on the streets

The Saskatchewan-raised Mitchell has received eight Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 2002. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

18th September 1968: Canadian folk singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell, strumming her guitar outside The Revolution club in London. (Central Press/Getty)

She started her career as a street musician in Canada before moving to Southern California, where she became part of the flourishing folk scene in the late 1960s. Her second album, Clouds, was a breakthrough with such songs as Both Sides Now and Chelsea Morning, winning Mitchell the Grammy for best folk performance.

Her 1970 album, Ladies of the Canyon, featured the hit single Big Yellow Taxi and the era-defining Woodstock. The following year, she released Blue, which ranks 30th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time."

Her musical style integrates folk and jazz elements, and she counts jazz giants Charles Mingus and Pat Metheny among her past collaborators.

Nigeria's military says it is moving 200 girls and 93 women from a northeastern forest where they were rescued from Boko Haram extremists.

Army spokesman Col. Sani Usman says many are traumatized. He says the military on Wednesday is flying in medical and intelligence teams to establish their psychological and physical health.

He says they started evacuating them from the Sambisa Forest on Tuesday but would not say to where.

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Military operations continue in the forest where it was announced Tuesday the women and girls were rescued while troops were destroying four Boko Haram camps.

An intelligence officer and a soldier say Boko Haram used some of the women as armed human shields, a first line of defence who fired at troops. They demanded anonymity because the issue is sensitive.

Nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped from Chibok in northeastern Nigeria by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram in April 2014. The militants took the schoolgirls in trucks into the Sambisa Forest. Dozens escaped on their own but 219 remain missing.

The plight of the schoolgirls, who have become known as "the Chibok girls," has garnered international attention and the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.

Their kidnapping brought Boko Haram to the attention of the world, arousing outrage and even U.S. first lady Michelle Obama got engaged, tweeting a photograph of herself with the campaign sign.

The Nigerian army announced two weeks ago that it would go into Sambisa Forest, which is a centre for the Boko Haram fighters, and that it believed the schoolgirls might still be there.

Boko Haram has kidnapped an unknown number of girls, women and young men to be used as sex slaves and fighters. Many have escaped or been released as a multinational offensive mounted at the end of January has driven Nigeria's home-grown Islamic militants from almost all towns of the northeast.

The only area left in control of Boko Haram was the Sambisa Forest, a national game reserve.

A recent poll shows the incumbent Liberals in Prince Edward Island, while still favoured to win, have seen their lead over the provincial Tories reduced significantly.

The province may be a microcosm of a wider federal trend taking place in Atlantic Canada.

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The Corporate Research Associates poll, commissioned and published by The Guardian, showed a drop of 14 points for Wade MacLauchlan's Liberals compared to CRA's previous poll from February. The Progressive Conservative opposition saw its support rise significantly.

The gap between the parties shrunk from 32 points to just nine. It makes for a tense final week, with the voting takes place on May 4.

The federal Liberals under leader Justin Trudeau are experiencing a similar softening in support in Atlantic Canada.

As recently as early March, the federal Liberal party held a very comfortable advantage over its rivals in the region. The party was polling at 52 per cent in ThreeHundredEight.com's March 2 projection, with the Conservatives at 23 per cent, the New Democrats at 17 per cent, and the Greens at 5.5 per cent.

That 29-point edge for the Liberals signaled a landslide victory. The party could have captured between 22 and 24 of the region's 32 seats with those levels of support. The Conservatives would have been reduced dramatically, with Peter MacKay potentially being the only Conservative outside of New Brunswick to survive the cull. For the New Democrats, only Jack Harris and Peter Stoffer looked like a lock for re-election.

But fortunes have changed in Atlantic Canada.

The Liberals are now averaging just 44.5 per cent support, their worst performance in the region in almost two years. The Conservatives, at 26 per cent, are putting up their best numbers since then. And the NDP, at 20 per cent, is at its highest level of support since last fall.

These estimates are based on an aggregate of polls stretching back several weeks, with newer surveys weighted more heavily. And those surveys are taking a negative turn for the Liberals.

Of the last five, the Liberals have registered just 42 to 44 per cent support. The last time the party put together numbers like that in five consecutive polls was before Trudeau became leader in 2013.

Instead of winning three-quarters of Atlantic Canada's seats, the Liberals might instead win just over half. While that is a big improvement over the 12 seats the party won in 2011, it is nevertheless far below some of the high expectations the party might have had last year. With the potential to win between 17 and 22 seats at these levels, the Liberals will have to make good those prospective losses in provinces like Ontario and Quebec, where their poll numbers are slumping.

The Conservatives could win between seven and 11 seats with these levels of support, still below the 14 seats they took in 2011, while the New Democrats could win between three and five. The NDP won six in the last election.

But despite the relative improvement of the Conservatives' position, the prospects for further Tory growth may be slim. Stephen Harper's approval rating in Atlantic Canada is his worst in the country. In the last three polls, he has averaged just 22 per cent approval. His 72 per cent average disapproval rating suggests he has little room for growth in the region. Instead, the recent bump limits his losses.

Thomas Mulcair of the NDP, however, does have the potential for some serious inroads. His average approval rating is 54 per cent in recent polls in Atlantic Canada, with his disapproval rating at just 24 per cent. So Mulcair is polling significantly higher than his own party.

That may be the reason why the NDP has not yet made important gains in the region. With the Liberals still leading, they may appear to many Atlantic Canadians as the better alternative to the governing party. Trudeau himself is not the problem, as his approval rating of 55 per cent in recent polls, compared to a 31 per cent disapproval rating, has been holding steady since the beginning of the year. This suggests his party's numbers are unlikely to dip much more.

But the Liberal landslide in Atlantic Canada that looked inevitable just a few months ago is gone, for now at least. While the Liberals should still do well in the region, the Conservatives and New Democrats are no longer fighting for their lives.

As bad news goes, it could be much worse for the Liberals.

A victory by Wade MacLauchlan's Liberals in P.E.I. next week would continue the party's impressive run of provincial victories in the region. But if the margin of victory turns out to be closer than even the CRA poll suggested, it would send a strong sign to the Liberals that Atlantic Canada cannot be taken for granted.

ThreeHundredEight.com's vote and seat projection model aggregates all publicly released polls, weighing them by sample size, date, and the polling firm's accuracy record. Upper and lower ranges are based on how polls have performed in other recent elections. The seat projection model makes individual projections for all ridings in the country, based on regional shifts in support since the 2011 election and taking into account other factors such as incumbency. The projections are subject to the margins of error of the opinion polls included in the model, as well as the unpredictable nature of politics at the riding level. The polls included in the model vary in size, date, and method, and have not been individually verified by the CBC. You can read the full methodology here.

The poll by the Corporate Research Associates was conducted for The Guardian between April 19 and 23, interviewing 579 Prince Edward Islanders over the telephone. The margin of error associated with the poll is +/- 4.1%, 19 times out of 20.

Banking fees are going up at all of Canada's five big banks, but some customers of RBC in particular are outraged about the changes. They're accusing Canada's biggest bank of targeting children and those who can least afford it.​

Gordon and Elaine Murray from Glen Margaret, N.S., have been RBC customers for 20 years. It took one envelope in the mail the other day to get them thinking about changing.

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Inside that envelope, Elaine Murray found the flyer Royal Bank of Canada recently mailed to many of its 16
million clients outlining the fee changes on the way.

"I couldn't believe it — it just seemed outrageous," she says.

Fee hikes June 1

On June 1, RBC is introducing new or higher fees for a variety of accounts and transactions including debit purchases, mortgage and loan payments and children's accounts.

The bank is also increasing the age eligibility for seniors' rebates from 60 to 65. 

Elaine Murray and her husband have several accounts, insurance and a mortgage with RBC. The first thing they noticed is the new fee being added to mortgage payments, on top of the interest already being charged. 

'Double-dipping'

"It looked like double-dipping when I saw that we could be paying on top of our interest a fee for making our mortgage payments," Gordon Murray says.  

The fee increases may only be a dollar here and there, but he says any additional money being taken from customers is too much, especially from a bank that just announced a record $2.46-billion profit.

"You have a multinational corporation that makes billions of dollars … come to its clients and say, 'and we want more,'" Murray says.

The couple say they are less worried about themselves and more troubled by the fees being added to children's accounts and student loans.

"They were reaching into the pockets of young savers and students — it is just wrong," Gordon Murray says.

Martin Weirich has banked with RBC for more than 15 years, and says the bank is 'very sneaky' in disguising the true cost of loans and mortgages. (CBC)

They're not alone. Across the country in Penticton, B.C., Martin Weirich is also a longtime RBC customer. 

"What caught my eye is a lot of the fees that are instituted were zero prior to this notice coming out, and now they are between $1 to $5 for regular payments. Payments like paying your mortgage or paying a loan."

"I think it's an outrageous fee increase for one. I think the bank has now made the cost of their loans and mortgages cost hundreds of dollars more without posting a rate increase, and I think that's very sneaky,"  Weirich says.

RBC says new fees 'cost of doing business'

"We understand that any change in pricing or fees is a sensitive topic for clients and we work hard to keep costs down," says RBC spokesman Andrew Block. 

"On an annual basis, we review our products and services and sometimes adjust the pricing for some of them to reflect the cost of doing business." 

Royal Bank of Canada

But Block also says customers will only be charged the additional fees on children's accounts, mortgages and loans if they exceed the number of free debit transactions allowed per month under individual banking plans.

He says the bank is willing to increase the allowable number of debit transactions for children and students if clients ask.

All 5 big banks increasing fees 

RBC is just the latest bank to introduce fee changes. All of Canada's biggest banks — Scotiabank, CIBC, TD Bank, BMO and RBC — have recently raised fees or will do so in the coming weeks. 

Scott Hannah from the Credit Counselling Society says the increases are small, but they add up.
"I think people in general are being fee'd to death, and not just by financial institutions," Hannah says.

"It seems, a variety of different services, we're hit with any number of fees, and looking at our incomes in Canada we are certainly not keeping up with inflation in many cases," he says.

"There's a sense of frustration, particularly when a person is living very tight to their paycheque." 

Scott Hannah, Credit Counselling Society (CBC)

Hannah says low lending rates are contributing to the banks' moves to increase fees.

"I think the banks listen to their shareholders, and I think the bank, like all corporations, is looking at how do we maximize returns for shareholders," he says.

His advice? First, talk to your bank about reducing or eliminating certain fees.

If that doesn't work, he says, "It pays to shop around, and with all the information available online, we strongly encourage people to have a hard look to make sure you have the right banking package." 

"Otherwise you may find yourself paying perhaps $100 or $200 extra fees each and every year." 

Ottawa looked at bank fees

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada looked at the issue of bank fees in a report that raises questions about how competitive Canada's banking industry is and if it's fair to consumers.

The federal agency looked at service, location and hours, but found Canadians were most dissatisfied with banking fees.

According to the report, the average monthly fee on chequing accounts went up by 13.6 per cent from 2005 to 2013. Not a big increase.

But during the same period, there was a 46 per cent increase in what it calls "variable fees," transactions that exceed or aren't covered by monthly banking plans. 

Yet the report had little to say about this. 

"While most researchers agree that the banking sector in Canada is highly concentrated, the consensus emerging from the literature is also that its market for financial services is relatively competitive."

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