Floods caused by glacier collapse kill at least 273, over 1,300 missing

DEVIGHAT, Nepal

Houses lie partially submerged in muddy water along a riverside after flash floods at Trishuli Bazar in Nepal’s Nuwakot district. (AFP photo)

Rescue teams searched on Aug. 27 for hundreds of missing people along the Nepal-China border after a catastrophic and deadly torrent of floods and mud swept through several communities a day earlier following a glacier collapse.

The disaster left at least 273 people dead and more than 1,300 missing, including foreigners and pilgrims, and displaced hundreds of people across the Himalayan region.

Videos of the tragedy showed the flood swallowing up people as they tried to escape and destroying buildings and bridges. On Aug. 27, drone footage from Nepal showed the scale of the destruction.

The village of Soley in Nuwakot, with about 25 homes, was virtually wiped out, said Nirajan Paudyal, a Kathmandu-based journalist whose parents and other relatives live there. Desperate for information, he traveled to the area on Aug. 27 for news of his family.

“There is no update till now. I fear there won’t be any update,” Paudyal said.

The Himalayan mountain range spans several countries in South Asia and has many of the world’s highest peaks and remaining glaciers.

The steep slopes and the lush valleys below the Himalayan mountain range are especially vulnerable to flooding and landslides, and extreme weather events. Melting glaciers have become more common because of warming because of human-caused climate change.

The disaster has left at least 270 dead and 826 people missing in Nepal, and three dead and 558 missing in Tibet, authorities said.

Nepalese officials said that dozens of bridges were destroyed and nearly 40 kilometers of roads were damaged, complicating search efforts.

The Nepalese army has rescued more than 100 people from flood-affected areas through helicopter operations on Aug. 27 morning, army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet said.

Rescuers found bodies hundreds of kilometers downstream from the disaster zone in Chitwan district.

Bishal Kumar Bhandari, chairman of the Nepal Red Cross Society, said they have shifted focus from rescue to large-scale relief operations in the flood-hit districts. He said that around 1,200 people were displaced from at least three villages.

In Tibet, a mudslide that struck near the land border crossing of Gyirong Port on Aug. 26 left mud in the surrounding areas more than 1.5 meters deep on average, with some road sections exceeding 2 meters, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported. Roads leading to the port were all damaged, while secondary collapses or landslides might occur as rain continued in the area, it added.

Chinese authorities deployed a large military transport aircraft to send a team to the region, and the country’s premier, Li Qiang, arrived in Gyirong on Aug. 27 to direct rescue efforts.

Further, Chinese authorities are warning that a barrier lake, which formed at the confluence of Tsogyal River and the Purupqiangzangbu, is overflowing and may burst.

According to Nepal’s Tourism Board, 517 of the missing people in the country were foreigners and 178 of them were from India, and some were likely there on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus.

The site, however, drew tourists from all over the world. More than 60 of the missing in Nepal were from the U.S. and the rest were from 30 other countries, ranging from Ukraine and the U.K to South Africa and Japan, the Tourism Board said.