Nearly 3,000 Missing in Nepal-Tibet Floods

A glacial collapse triggered a tsunami-like flood on the Nepal-Tibet border, leaving nearly 3,000.

A tsunami-like wall of water and debris swept through the Himalayan region on the Tibet-Nepal border on Wednesday, engulfing villages and swallowing settlements along the rivers. The US Geological Survey said the disaster was caused by a glacial collapse that triggered a vast flow of icy debris downstream, and Yahoo News reports it is the deadliest disaster for Nepal since the 2015 earthquake. By Saturday, the number of missing had soared to nearly 3,000 according to figures from both countries, with bodies recovered downstream as far away as India. "All the settlements near the river were swept away. There is nothing left," survivor Buddhi Ram Dangol told AFP.

The scale of the missing list is what makes this disaster so staggering. Nepal's disaster authority added 933 hydropower workers to a missing persons list that already included trekkers and pilgrims traveling to Tibet's sacred Mount Kailash. CNA reports 2,426 people, including hundreds of foreigners, remain out of contact in Nepal, while across the border in Tibet, seven people died and 554 remain missing per Xinhua. The numbers rose through the day: AFP reporting carried by CNA put recovered bodies at 682 with Nepal's toll at 675, while The Jakarta Post's AFP copy earlier listed 633 bodies recovered and 626 deaths in Nepal.

Rescue work is being complicated by fears of renewed flooding. The deluge of ice and mud caused huge lakes to form, and one became a direct threat to emergency workers; Nepali police urged all rescuers to "immediately move to a safe location," saying a water dam had burst again on the Tibetan side. Beijing suspended its rescue operation at the hardest-hit area of Gyirong before saying the threat had eased, and Yahoo News reports state broadcaster CCTV said a debris-formed lake began overflowing toward rescue teams before its water level dropped. On the Nepali side, soldiers are drilling to reach about 100 people trapped in the tunnel of the Trishuli 3A hydropower project, with an Indian tunnel rescue unit arriving to help.

Survivors describe a disaster that unfolded with terrifying speed. Buddha Tamang survived only because he was inside a tunnel at the dam where he worked; "The senior officers working on the other side, they were all swept away," he told AFP after being airlifted following more than 24 hours marooned. Sivaranjani Muthunathan, 46, was on a bus with 56 pilgrims heading to Mount Kailash when vehicles around her were buried in mud. Relatives now crowd hospitals and army bases, scanning posted lists. "I don't think there is any hope left," Kalka Sharda told AFP, unable to find his 18-year-old hydropower laborer son on rescue lists at Bidur.

The Red Cross estimates as many as 93,000 people may have been affected and in "great need," with food and water supplies running out in devastated zones. Yahoo News reports UNICEF says at least 17,000 children urgently need humanitarian assistance, with 18 schools destroyed and another 20 damaged, and that the EU has promised €2 million in aid. Nepal's reconstruction bill could run into "billions of dollars," Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said on Saturday, appealing for heavy-lift drones, forensic testing kits, and freezer units to preserve bodies. India has recovered seven bodies from rivers flowing from Nepal, believed to be flood victims.

Rescue operations continue on both sides of the border, with Chinese President Xi Jinping chairing a meeting on rescue efforts and offering Beijing's help to Nepal's operations, according to Yahoo News. Authorities in Tibet have evacuated 555 stranded tourists and 499 Chinese residents, and Xinhua reported two villagers rescued in Gyirong. Nepal's expert mountain rescue teams, accustomed to Everest operations, are joining the search, while the death toll is expected to rise as rescue workers battle through what one Nepal Scout rescuer called "thick, leg-sucking mud." With glaciers melting worldwide amid climate change, the disaster raises hard questions about hydropower construction and pilgrimage routes in an increasingly unstable high-mountain region.