Number of missing in deadly Nepal, China floods soars to nearly 3,000
The death toll has risen to more than 600, as search and rescue teams battle muddy conditions to reach survivors in affected areas.
Nepalese policemen watch as earthmovers clear the debris of flash flooding in Nepal's Nuwakot district, Thursday, Aug 27, 2026. (Photo: AP/Niranjan Shrestha)
NUWAKOT, Nepal: Rescuers in Nepal and China were still battling on Saturday (Aug 29) to locate thousands of people missing days after a deadly, tsunami-like wall of water and debris swept through the Himalayan region, engulfing villages.
The latest figures from both countries put the number of missing close to 3,000, with 682 bodies recovered - and reports of some dead possibly swept downstream as far away as India.
Rescue worker Kawan Koirala, from the Nepal Scout Disaster Response Team, said they were struggling in thick, leg-sucking mud.
"People want their family's body back, either dead or alive, but we cannot find them ... you can see the mud," he told AFP, exhausted after an 18-hour shift.
"It is very traumatic for me too. It is my first time seeing these types of things. Everywhere is mud. We faced floods in Nepal before, but not like this."
The US Geological Survey said the disaster on Wednesday on the Tibet-Nepal border was caused by a glacial collapse that created a torrent of debris downstream.
Survivors face an agonising wait to learn the fate of missing relatives, and the prospect of rebuilding their lives from nothing.
"All the settlements near the river were swept away," Buddhi Ram Dangol told AFP in Nepal's Nuwakot district. "There is nothing left."
Ms Saraswati Ghale, 43, said her home was destroyed in the flood. She recalled scrambling uphill as the water struck, shaking the ground "like there was an earthquake".
"I don't have anything (left) ... I am saved but who knows how things will pan out," she said.
At Bidur's army base, a key rescue hub in the same district, relatives crowded around lists of rescued people pasted on a wall.
"I have come here looking for my son," said Kalka Sharda, scanning the list in desperation. "He was a labourer at the hydropower plant, but I can't find his name, and the authorities are not saying anything."
In an area home to vast energy infrastructure projects, Nepal's disaster authority listed 933 hydropower workers among the missing, along with 517 foreigners, including trekkers and pilgrims to Tibet's sacred Mount Kailash.
"ENORMOUS" TRAUMA
The trauma of Wednesday's catastrophe has been "enormous", and as many as 93,000 people may have been affected, the Red Cross said, with the death toll expected to rise.
Nepal's Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle told Reuters the government's initial estimate was that rebuilding would cost between US$4 billion and US$5 billion.
"This is just an estimate. Loss and damage is being assessed," he said.
Nepal's reconstruction bill could run into "billions of dollars", Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said on Saturday.
"The urgency is on rescue and saving lives as much as we can," he said, appealing for specialised assistance, including heavy-lift drones and technology to help locate people who are trapped.
He also called for forensic testing kits to identify bodies and freezer units to store them, saying bodies that have been in water could decompose at a faster rate.
"Our own healthcare capacity is very limited to put these bodies in a frozen state for a long time," he said.
Mr Khanal said Nepal also required specialist assistance to rescue people trapped in tunnels, restore transport and communication lines where bridges had been destroyed, and conduct DNA testing on recovered bodies.
A team of Indian tunnel experts arrived in Nepal on Saturday, he said, while China's Xinhua news agency reported Beijing had dispatched five tunnel experts to support rescue efforts, with four more due to join them.
India has already sent three flights carrying 60 tonnes of relief supplies, including blankets, medicines and food. It has also offered disaster-response personnel, prefabricated bridges and technical teams to help restore connectivity, its foreign ministry said.
Three days after the disaster, authorities said some bodies being recovered had decomposed beyond recognition. They would be buried after legal formalities because of health risks and fears of disease outbreaks.
"DNA samples will be collected, and the bodies will be buried in an open space," the Chitwan district administration said in a notice.
Emergency teams worked flat out to find survivors as widespread devastation left communities short of food and water.
Fears of further flooding have compounded the search for the missing.
The deluge of ice and mud caused huge lakes to form, and one of these formations has become a direct threat to emergency workers scouring the region for survivors.
By Saturday, however, the risk from one such lake straddling the Nepal-China border had eased, with parts of the lake bed visible, Chinese authorities and state broadcaster CCTV said. Satellite images suggested water was slowly draining from the lake, gradually reducing its size, CCTV reported.
While the exact cause of the collapse is unclear, climate change is causing glaciers to melt worldwide, increasing the risks of such disasters.
In Tibet, where Chinese authorities are the only source of information, Beijing had paused its rescue operation at the hardest-hit area of Gyirong over the risk of renewed flooding.
On the Nepali side, soldiers were trying desperately to drill through to 100 people trapped in the tunnel of the Trishuli 3A hydropower project on Saturday.
The prime minister's office said teams had begun "clearing mud and debris" to open the entrance, while a specialised Indian tunnel rescue unit had arrived to help.
Nepal's expert mountain rescue teams - used to aiding climbers on the world's highest peaks, including Everest - are also joining the search.
"We do similar work on the mountains, with rescue operations for people trapped in risky places, so I believe our skills will be useful," Tul Singh Gurung, president of Nepal National Mountain Guide Association, told AFP.
Workers rescued from other dam projects along the Trishuli valley described a disaster that unfolded with terrifying speed.
PILGRIMAGE ROUTE
Nepal reported a death toll of 675 people on Saturday.
There are 2,426 people, including hundreds of foreigners, who are out of contact in the country.
Across the border in Tibet, which is largely inaccessible to foreign journalists, seven people died and 554 remain missing, the state Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.
Authorities also said they had evacuated 555 stranded tourists and 499 Chinese residents from Tibet.
In India, authorities said they had recovered seven bodies from rivers flowing from Nepal, believed to be flood victims. India's Ministry of External Affairs said separately that 275 Indian nationals were missing.
In Malaysia, families of 91 citizens listed as "uncontactable" across Tibet and Nepal also waited for news. Mr Manivannan Rethinam, a representative for some of them, urged the foreign ministry to establish a communication channel for faster updates, saying the lack of information was "profoundly painful" for relatives awaiting news. Malaysia's foreign ministry said search, rescue and verification efforts were continuing.
Scores of Hindu devotees from across the world are among those missing on the border, as many were on a pilgrimage to Tibet's Mount Kailash.
Sivaranjani Muthunathan was travelling by bus with 56 others towards the Chinese border when they became stuck in what they thought was a traffic jam.
"Then there was fog, smoke, something that seemed to suddenly engulf us," Muthunathan, 46, told AFP on Friday, showing a phone video she recorded of a torrent surging towards her.
Around them, vehicles were swept away or buried under mud.
"One by one, we also climbed out through the driver's side," then scrambled up a hill, she said.
Hope was fading for some still waiting desperately for news.
Kalka Sharda, in Bidur, was searching lists of rescued for his 18-year-old son Vinod Sharda, a hydropower plant labourer.
"I don't think there is any hope left," he said.
"Because, if he was alive, he would have found a way to get in touch."
