Live Updates: At Least 72 Killed and Hundreds Missing as Floods Sweep Away Villages in Nepal
A wall of water crashed through a Himalayan river valley between Nepal and the Chinese territory of Tibet, the Nepali authorities said. The missing included border officials, port workers and foreign tourists.
At least 72 people were killed and hundreds of others, many of them tourists, are missing in Nepal and the Chinese territory of Tibet on Wednesday after waves of floodwaters crashed through river valleys and destroyed settlements, officials said.
An unknown number of people were unaccounted for, including the staff at four Nepali Police posts and customs officials at a land border with China, according to Abi Narayan Kafle, a spokesman for the Nepal Police. Security forces led by the Nepali Army said that 114 people had been airlifted to safety.
The dozens of deaths were reported by officials in Nepal. But the Chinese state news agency Xinhua said there had been “significant” casualties at the Gyirong port of entry, at the border with Nepal. Surveillance footage circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times shows crowds running up a road near the port before torrents of water and thick clouds engulf the parking lot and surrounding buildings, destroying the area.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, ordered the local authorities to “make every effort” to search for and rescue missing residents.
The cause of the disaster was not immediately clear, though Nepal’s foreign minister, Shisir Khanal, said the government had received preliminary information that an avalanche had occurred Wednesday morning in the affected region. Scientists studying the disaster said their initial assessment was that an ice avalanche was triggered by a large chunk of ice that broke off from a glacier.
“There was no rain in Nepal, so we were not expecting anything like this,” said Narendra Pariyar, the chief district officer of Rasuwa, one of the areas affected by the floods.
As many as 384 tourists, including 291 foreigners, had been reported missing in Nepal, the country’s tourism board said in a statement. They included dozens of visitors from India, a dozen Britons and at least three Americans. Citizens from Australia, the Netherlands, Malaysia and South Africa were also among the missing.
Thousands of people live in riverside settlements downstream from the flooding. The authorities have not estimated the number of people missing and the extent of damage but said that bridges, schools and hydropower projects had been swept away.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
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Initial Assessment: A preliminary analysis of satellite imagery indicates that an ice avalanche set off the flooding, said Simon Cook, a glaciologist at the University of Dundee in Scotland who is part of a team of scientists studying the disaster. According to their initial assessment, he said, a large chunk of ice broke off from a high-altitude glacier and tumbled thousands of feet toward the Bhotekoshi River in Nepal, releasing vast amounts of energy that pulverized the ice into a significant volume of flood water.
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Destruction in China: Footage released by Chinese state media shows surging waters overwhelming buildings at the Gyirong port, taking out trees and rendering roads impassable. Read more ›
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Rescue Effort: Security teams led by the Nepali Army have been carrying out rescue operations. The army has mobilized 12 helicopters, set up a temporary hospital in the flood zone and evacuated at least 25 seriously injured people to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital.
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Nepal’s Government: The disaster adds to the woes of Nepal’s recently elected government, and its 36-year old prime minister, Balendra Shah, who swept to power on the back of a youth-led protest movement last year. Nepal’s education minister, Sasmit Pokharel, said the country had sought help from both its giant neighbors, China and India, to strengthen its rescue operations
While the Nepali authorities reported that dozens of people had been killed and hundreds of people were missing on Wednesday after devastating flooding, there was less information about casualties on the Chinese side of the border, in the territory of Tibet.
The Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported that there had been “significant” casualties at the Gyirong Port in China, where footage released by state media shows surging waters overwhelming buildings, taking out trees and rendering roads impassable
The death toll from the flood in Nepal has reached 72, Abi Narayan Kafle of the Nepali Police, said by telephone.
Satellite imagery captured on Wednesday shows flood damage along the Trishuli River, about 25 miles southwest of where the landslide ripped through Gyirong Port on the border between China and Nepal. Several major streets and dozens of buildings appear inundated in the image.
An influential Indian spiritual guru and entrepreneur known as Sadhguru, whose Isha Foundation organizes pilgrimage tours to Mount Kailash, said 77 members of its tours were at the immigration center of the Nepal-Tibet border when the floodwaters hit. “There has been no official information on the whereabouts of any of the people who were at the immigration office,” he wrote in a social media post. “We are working with the authorities to see if we can get to the location and stand ready to be part of the rescue efforts.” He attached a video that appeared to show the border crossing, with water sweeping up people trying to run away.
The death toll from the flooding along Nepal’s Bhotekoshi river has reached 22, according to the Nepal Police, with search and rescue efforts still underway. Security forces have airlifted 114 people to safety, including 25 who were taken for treatment to Kathmandu and 21 who went to local hospitals.
Most of the people in the rural border town of Gyirong Port where the mudslide struck are likely to be local Tibetans, migrant workers from other parts of China or traders from Nepal. Gyirong Port is in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, an area that the Chinese government keeps under tight control as part of efforts to squash any dissent. The authorities invested in the port as part of efforts to incorporate Tibet into China’s signature Belt and Road Project through trade with Nepal and India.
Among the Indian nationals missing in the floods is a group of more than 50 pilgrims from country’s south. Mohammad Hussain, a cousin of the travel agent coordinating the tour, said they had not been reachable since the group left their hotel in the morning. to go to the Nepal-Tibet border, on their way to Mount Kailash. The tour guide, Syed Umar Farooq, had spoken to his family the night before. The family has managed to make contact to a different group of about 20 Indian pilgrims, who reported that they were safe.
Footage circulating on social media on Wednesday morning showed a bridge being battered by a torrent of water in Nepal, about 40 miles from the country’s capital, Kathmandu. In the video, verified by The New York Times, people can be heard shouting as the bridge collapses and is swept downstream in the torrential flood.
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A preliminary analysis of satellite imagery indicates that an ice avalanche triggered the flooding, said Simon Cook, a glaciologist at the University of Dundee in Scotland who is part of a team of scientists studying the disaster. According to the team’s early assessment, a large chunk of ice broke off from a high-altitude glacier and tumbled thousands of feet below toward the Bhotekoshi River in Nepal, releasing vast amounts of energy that pulverized the ice into a significant volume of flood water.
Security forces led by the Nepali Army said that 88 people had been rescued, while hundreds were still missing.
The floods add to the woes of Nepal’s recently elected government, and its 36-year old prime minister, Balendra Shah, who swept to power on the back of a Gen-Z protests last year. The protest movement toppled the entrenched dynastic parties accused of corruption and mismanagement of the poor Himalayan nation’s affairs. But Shah has struggled to find his footing, seen as heavy-handed against his opponents and bogged down on his promise of a more efficient government.
Nearly half of the over 100 Indian tourists reportedly affected by the floods are from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, according to a lawmaker from the state. Dayanidhi Maran, the lawmaker, appealed to India’s government to help in the rescue.
Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal of Nepal told Parliament that the government had received preliminary information that the flooding in the Rasuwa district might have been caused by an avalanche triggered by an earthquake Wednesday morning in the Tibetan region
Surveillance footage circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times shows the moment a landslide ripped through the Gyirong Port on the border between China and Nepal. In one video, crowds of people are running up a road near the port. Seconds later, torrents of water and thick clouds engulf the parking lot and surrounding buildings, destroying the area.
Another surveillance video shows the moment the landslide crashes through the building that serves as the port of entry, as dozens of people run in the other direction. Debris can be seen flying through the air as successive waves continue to flood the port, filling the camera’s field of vision.
