More than 390 people have died, and over 1,500 remain missing across Nepal and Tibet after a huge collapse of mud and rock into a Himalayan river triggered flash flooding through mountain towns and valleys this week, officials said.
Search efforts continued yesterday, August 27, as rescue teams waded through mud searching for the missing. Nepalese officials said at least 392 people had died in the country, while at least three deaths were confirmed in Tibet.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited the mudslide site in Tibet yesterday afternoon to oversee rescue and relief work, according to state media.
Nepal’s Department of Tourism said yesterday that 668 tourists from 34 countries had been out of contact since Wednesday morning, most of them on trekking trips. Among them were at least 177 from India, 90 from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from the United Kingdom, and 25 from Canada. China’s foreign ministry said 100 Chinese nationals were also among those missing in Nepal.
In Tibet’s Gyirong county, 558 people, including 260 foreign nationals, were reported missing, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Al Jazeera‘s Minelle Fernandez, reporting from Kathmandu, said search and rescue efforts faced major challenges, with damaged roads and bridges making it difficult for teams to reach affected areas.
Government and private helicopters have been sent to fly survivors to hospitals for treatment, with doctors reporting injuries including broken ribs and skin burns.
Helicopters have also been deployed to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands of people cut off in the mountainous region, which is popular with trekkers and pilgrims travelling between Lhasa and Kathmandu.
Video verified by news agencies showed torrents of water and debris sweeping people away at a border crossing in Gyirong on Wednesday, while homes, roads, and power infrastructure were destroyed downstream in Nepal.
Nepal’s disaster authority said yesterday that a lake formed at the site of the flooding was rising and at risk of bursting.
Army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet said helicopters were dropping tents, food, and medicine supplied by India into the worst-hit districts, with more than 5,000 army and police personnel involved in the rescue effort.
Today, Nepal News reported that the army had rescued 350 workers and residents trapped in a tunnel at the Upper Trishuli hydropower project, working through poor weather and high river flows.
India evacuated thousands of people from the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, which border Nepal, as the floods threatened the Gandak River Basin.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah travelled by road to Bidur in Nuwakot district, one of the worst-affected areas, to assess the situation, his office said.
Nepalese officials initially suggested an earthquake may have caused the lower section of a glacier to collapse, triggering the flash floods. However, the US Geological Survey said the seismic event, initially recorded as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake, was in fact the seismic energy released by the sudden collapse of glacial rock and ice, followed by a large debris flow.
Preliminary satellite analysis by Planet Labs indicated that a landslide of ice and rock triggered a debris-laden surge down the Lhende River, around 20 kilometres northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border crossing between Nepal and China.
In the affected valleys, thick mud covered homes, trees, and vehicles, while aerial footage showed collapsed houses, submerged cars, and a metal bridge swept away by the water.
Nepal’s National Planning Commission and National Statistics Office are launching a study into the economic damage caused by the disaster. The floods struck 15 hydropower projects and shut down an estimated 431 megawatts of generating capacity, with heavy damage reported at the Rasuwagadhi, Chilime and Sanjen plants.
Tula Bahadur BK, a healthcare worker in Rasuwa, described the scale of the destruction, saying settlements next to the river had been completely swept away, and that five of his own relatives were missing.
Others caught in the disaster were on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar, high-altitude sites in Tibet revered by Hindus, Buddhists, and followers of other faiths.
The US Department of State said it was sending a disaster response adviser and providing US$500,000 in emergency aid.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney described the flooding as devastating and said Canadian officials were monitoring the situation closely.
Tom Fletcher, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said US$2 million would be allocated from the UN’s Global Emergency Fund CERF for relief efforts in Nepal. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had earlier confirmed that UN teams were delivering emergency supplies and support staff to affected communities.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said gathering clear information from the remote area remained difficult due to limited local infrastructure. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said today that Australia would give AU$5.5 million in aid to communities affected by the flooding along the Nepal-China border and would send extra consular staff to the region.
Climate and public policy specialist Sunil Acharya told Al Jazeera the disaster highlighted Nepal’s growing exposure to climate hazards. He said the country lacked the resources to deal with the climate crisis alone and called for stronger international cooperation to limit greenhouse gas emissions and prevent further damage.
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