Death toll rises, rescuers search for 1,400 missing after Nepal-Tibet floods

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BIDUR, Nepal – Rescue teams waded through mud on Aug 27 searching for more than 1,400 people missing after flash floods and landslides struck the Nepal-Tibet border, as the death toll rose sharply to at least 362, with entire villages swept away.

Experts warned of the risk of further floods a day after the devastating tsunami-like wall of freezing water and mud wiped out towns under a torrent of sludge, engulfing homes, smashing bridges and dams, and sweeping vehicles away like toys.

Many of the missing are foreign tourists, including scores of Hindu pilgrims to Tibet’s sacred snow-capped Mount Kailash. Nine Singaporeans are also among the missing.

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the disaster was caused by a glacial collapse that triggered a vast flow of icy debris.

Emergency teams were racing to pluck survivors from affected zones, while Nepali soldiers used sniffer dogs to search for bodies buried under the suffocating dirt.

Nepal’s Home Minister Sudhan Gurung said the focus remained on finding survivors as rescue teams located 100 missing Indian visitors, mostly pilgrims, and 25 Chinese workers in the worst-hit region around Trishuli.

“Everything is finished,” Omkar Joshi, 35, a Nepali customs agent rescued from a hilltop in the border town of Timure, told AFP.

“It is a giant graveyard. All that is left are sand and pebbles, soaked red by human blood.”

Nepali police said they have recovered 359 bodies.

Ganesh Aryal, the administrator of Chitwan district, said the authorities have recovered 103 bodies from the river system in his district, which is about 100km away in the plains from Trishuli.

Meanwhile, 910 people, including 517 foreign tourists, were out of contact in the country. Beijing says 100 Chinese citizens are missing in Nepal.

In China, state media said the “mudslide disaster” at the Gyirong Port in Tibet killed three people while 558 people, including 260 foreigners, are missing.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited the area on Aug 27, state media said, to oversee “emergency rescue and relief work, and to visit rescue workers and affected people”.

Li Qipu, a member of China’s paramilitary People’s Armed Police, cited “the instability of a reservoir lake upstream” and “the narrow mountain road” as elements complicating rescue efforts.

China’s Tibet Autonomous Region is largely inaccessible to foreign journalists.

Inland tsunami

Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah, who urged the Himalayan nation to “stand together” hours after the disaster, visited some of the hardest-hit areas on Aug 27.

Shah told the local authorities to “provide immediate relief to displaced families” and to open blocked roads, his office said in a statement.

The foreigners out of contact included Indians and others from Australia, Britain, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea and the US, Nepal’s tourism board said.

The sudden rush of mud and debris was “like an inland tsunami”, travelling nearly 170km south into Nepal, said environmental historian Ruth Gamble of Australia’s La Trobe University.

Rasuwa, in the north of Nepal, was the first district to be affected, but deaths were reported as far as Chitwan in the south, on the border with India.

Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India, said he would “pray for all those who have lost their lives”.

Chinese government officials in Tibet mobilised nearly 800 emergency workers, as well as sniffer dogs and speed boats to help the rescue efforts, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Promises of aid and assistance came in soon after reports of the scale of the disaster.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was dispatching emergency supplies including blankets, first aid kits, stretchers and body bags.

Glacial collapse

The USGS said the flood was sparked by a glacial collapse, which caused seismic activity and the “catastrophic” downstream impacts in Nepal and Tibet.

“This event was initially reported as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake,” it said, but added that the seismic recordings were analysed and found instead to be a “glacial collapse and debris flow”.

Climate change is causing glaciers to melt worldwide, increasing the risks of glacial lake floods and glacial collapses.

Fears of potential further floods remain, with water trapped by the immense piles of debris blocking the valley.

“With a blockage still lodged upstream on the Nepal-China border river, the authorities warn a second flood may occur,” said Qianggong Zhang, head of climate and environmental risks at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.

Kathmandu’s Flood Forecasting Division issued a “special notice” on Aug 27, warning of a growing lake behind debris left by the landslide.

“Residents of downstream areas of the Bhote Koshi River, travellers, rescue personnel and all concerned are requested to exercise extreme caution,” it said.

On the morning of Aug 27, the dammed lake was estimated at two million cubic metres in volume and was already overflowing, state media said citing the Chinese Water Resources Ministry.

Another three million cubic metres of water – roughly 1,200 Olympic-size swimming pools – is expected to enter the lake over the next three days, posing a high risk of a breach, with peak flow expected around Sept 1, it said.

Scores of Hindu devotees from across the world are among the hundreds missing on the border, Indian spiritual leader Sadhguru said on Aug 27.

They were returning from a holy pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, on the Chinese side of the frontier, when they were caught in the floods at the immigration post.

“The entire group was there in the building,” Sadhguru said in a video message to his millions of followers, weeping as he spoke from Tibet, speaking over the anguished wails from other pilgrims.

“This is a terrible and extraordinary event.” AFP, REUTERS