CHARIKOT, Nepal (Reuters) - The Nepali army has been told a missing United States Marines helicopter with eight on board may have come down in a river in the Charikot area hit hard by an earthquake and 400 soldiers are engaged in the hunt, a senior officer said on Wednesday.

"The info we have is that it is down in one of the rivers, but none of the choppers has seen it yet," Major Rajan Dahal, second-in-command of the Barda Bahadur Batallion, told Reuters in Charikot. "There are 400-plus of our ground troops looking for it also, by this evening, we might get it."

The Marine Corps UH-1Y Huey helicopter participating in earthquake relief operations lost radio contact on Tuesday after its crew was heard talking about fuel problems.