Rescuers in Nepal and China raced yesterday to find thousands of people missing after a glacier collapse unleashed a catastrophic mudslide across the Himalayas, as they faced challenging weather conditions and rising water levels.
Authorities said the death toll rose to nearly 800 yesterday, with more than 3,000 people missing on both sides of the Nepal-China border after a torrent of ice, rock, mud and debris swept through mountain valleys and rivers on Wednesday, causing widespread devastation.
The Red Cross has estimated that more than 90,000 people are likely to have been affected by the disaster, which China has linked to the effects of climate change.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Nepalese counterpart during a telephone call that the mudslide was their ‘most severe cross-border disaster’ in recent years and that rescue operations had risen to an unprecedented level of difficulty and complexity, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Nepal’s disaster authority said 781 people had died, with 2,502 missing.
On the Chinese side, authorities said 16 people were killed in Gyirong County and 546 were missing.
Beijing said 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries were unaccounted for in Tibet, near a key border crossing with Nepal.
The scale of the disaster has complicated rescue efforts across the rugged Himalayan terrain.
Local police in Nepal told Reuters that residents and rescue workers had moved to higher ground after the Trishuli River’s water levels rose following fresh rainfall, raising fears of additional flooding.
Rescue operations have been suspended several times since Friday because of bad weather and concerns that a lake formed across the Nepal-China border by the disaster could trigger fresh flooding after it began overflowing into Nepal’s Lhende Khola and Trishuli Rivers.
CCTV reported that the lake threatening downstream areas had been largely drained by Saturday evening.
But drones detected a landslide later that is 2.8km downstream of the lake, forming a new dam and a fresh pool of water.
In Nepal, rescue efforts have increasingly focused on five hydropower projects inundated by the floods, including the Upper Trishuli complex, where authorities said they received information that around 350 people could be trapped inside a tunnel.
About 10,000 Nepali troops have been deployed alongside specialist teams from China and India.
Nepal’s military airlifted heavy machinery to the remote site yesterday and rescuers reached the entrance of one tunnel, beginning to clear debris blocking access.
Authorities said teams carrying oxygen supplies and cameras would enter once access was secured.
“It’s very tough because there’s a lot of debris and we cannot blast things to make our way through,” said Dharam Raj Uprety, Nepal’s national disaster management authority chief.
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