By Gopal Sharma, Sahana Bajracharya and Navesh Chitrakar
TRISHULI, Nepal, Aug 27 (Reuters) – Nearly 1,500 people, including more than 700 foreigners, are missing across Nepal and China’s Tibet, authorities said on Thursday, after a wall of mud and rock collapsed into a Himalayan river, causing catastrophic flash floods.
Rescuers in Nepal used helicopters to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands cut off in towns and valleys after Wednesday’s disaster swept a road thronged by trekkers and pilgrims that links Kathmandu with Lhasa in Tibet.
Police said they expected the death toll to rise beyond 165.
“This will go up, as we have resumed the search and more bodies are expected to be recovered,” police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle told Reuters.
Almost 500 foreigners were among 826 people missing in Nepal, police and tourism officials said.
Among the missing tourists from more than two dozen countries, 177 were from India, 63 were from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 25 from Canada.
Malaysia’s foreign ministry said 55 nationals were uncontactable but there was no official confirmation of casualties.
The tally of missing in Tibet’s Gyirong county was 558, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday, including 260 foreign nationals. China said the death toll stayed at three.
Verified videos showed crushing masses of water and debris sweeping away dozens of people at a border crossing in Gyirong, with homes, roads and power projects washed away in Nepal as the flows travelled downstream.
“It was a huge gush of mud coming straight towards us,” said Keshav Prasad Baral, a 68-year-old survivor being treated in a Nepali hospital.
“As it got closer, it kept rising higher and higher. When I saw it enter our home, I tried to grab my wife’s hand and take her to the terrace. But she was swept away by the mud.”
A helicopter ferried him to safety four hours later. “My wife is still somewhere beneath the mud,” he added. “She’s gone.”
Another survivor said he saved himself by clinging to a mango tree as he watched the house where he had been working disappear.
EMERGENCY DELIVERIES BEGIN
In the hardest-hit districts, helicopters are dropping tents, food and other emergency supplies provided by neighbouring India, said Raja Ram Basnet, a spokesperson for Nepal’s army.
More than 5,000 army and police rescue personnel joined the rescue effort that retrieved 125 people on Thursday, including 20 foreigners, he said.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah left by road to assess the flood situation in one of the worst affected districts of Nuwakot, his office said on social media.
Early reports from Nepali officials suggested an earthquake in the area could have caused the lower part of a glacier to collapse and trigger the floods.
The U.S. Geological Survey said an earthquake with magnitude initially reported as 4.4 was in fact seismic energy generated by the collapse of glacial rock and ice, followed by debris flow.
Chinese authorities have identified risks from a still-dammed lake in Gyirong, upstream from the mudslide and flood-stricken Tibet-Nepal border crossing that could complicate rescue efforts, particularly as rains are forecast, CCTV said.
Last July, the rapid drainage of a lake atop the Purepa glacier in Tibet unleashed deadly flooding in Nepal.
Many of this week’s victims pilgrims headed to Kailash Mansarovar, a high-altitude site in Tibet revered by Hindus and Buddhists, among others.
Mount Kailash, which Hindus believe to be the abode of Lord Shiva, lies on the banks of Lake Mansarovar, is also held sacred by many.
Sagar Pandey, the chief executive of a Himalayan tourism operator, said 15 Indian-Australians on a pilgrimage tour with the company were missing.
“There are no human-made things, no human settlement left. Everything is just flat,” he told Reuters after flying over the zone in a helicopter. “So anyone in the hotel, the restaurant, or the car, I believe that everybody is gone.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said details on the disaster were scant.
“Nepal … is a developing country,” he said. “It doesn’t have the resources that an event like that would have in Australia, so information is difficult.”
The U.S. State Department said it was sending a disaster response adviser and providing assistance of $500,000.
Canada was also closely following the situation, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on X, describing the floods as “absolutely devastating”.
U.N. teams and partners were sending supplies and personnel to support affected Nepali communities, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.
VIDEOS SHOW PEOPLE SWEPT AWAY WHILE FLEEING
Security footage captured on the Chinese side of the border showed many people fleeing from a torrent of rock, mud and water that destroyed buildings and vehicles.
The Gyirong border port has a key role in the flagship Belt and Road network linking China to South Asia, with logistics parks, yards, and parking lots built in the past decade as part of extensive development efforts.
People seeking information about family members missing from the affected areas of Nuwakot and Dhading gathered outside a Nepali army training centre that was the base for helicopter rescue operations, the images showed.
In the affected areas, layers of mud metres thick swathed homes, trees and vehicles. Helicopters ferrying survivors hovered overhead all day.
An initial study of Planet Labs satellite imagery showed a landslide of ice and rock unleashed a flood carrying debris in the Lhende River, about 20 km (12 miles) northeast of the Nepal-China Rasuwagadhi border crossing, Nepal disaster management officials said on X.
Television images showed collapsed homes, floating cars and a metal bridge being washed away, while witnesses said the waters engulfed entire villages.
“There is devastation everywhere we look,” said Tula Bahadur BK, a health worker in Rasuwa.
“The settlements next to the river have been completely swept away. Five of my own relatives are missing.”
(Reporting by Gopal Sharma, Sahana Bajracharya, Aftab Ahmed, Liz Lee, Yukun Zhang, Xiuhao Chen, Shi Bu, Sakshi Dayal, Kanjyik Ghosh, Jatindra Dash and Christine Chen; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Stephen Coates, Clarence Fernandez and Saad Sayeed)
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