Nepal-Tibet floods: death toll passes 1,000 as rescue efforts continue at hydropower tunnels – latest updates

Death toll from Nepal-China flood disaster exceeds 1,000, authorities sayThe death toll from the catastrophic flooding in Nepal and China has passed 1,000 as of Tuesday morning, officials said, with authorities reportedly burying hundreds of unidentified victims after the flood disaster overwhelmed morgues.Nepal’s disaster agency said in an update on Tuesday that 987 deaths had been counted there, with 3,916 people missing, including 583 foreigners.Chinese authorities, in their latest update on Sunday, reported 16 deaths and 546 people still missing.Armed police officers stand near bodies that are about to be transferred to the pit at the Devghat mass burial site in Chitwan, Nepal. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/ReutersThe initial 72 hours after a disaster are viewed as critical to a rescue operation and there are fading hopes that the missing will be found alive.Rescue efforts nonetheless persist, but have been complicated by challenging terrain, persistently high flood waters and difficult weather.The devastating floods occurred last Wednesday when a huge section of a glacier in the Himalayas came loose and crashed on to the valley floor in Nepal’s Langtang national park, unleashing a massive wall of water and mud that rushed down rivers and valleys.The resulting floods obliterated villages and destroyed vital infrastructure such as power stations, roads and bridges.Nepal army soldiers undertake a rescue operation at the site of a hydropower project in Upper Trishuli, Nepal. Photograph: Nepali Army/APMuch of the rescue efforts are now focused on trying to reach the 900 or so missing hydropower workers, hundreds of whom are feared trapped in the tunnels and underground areas of 12 hydropower projects in Nepal.“A large amount of debris has been deposited and that is posing us a big challenge to open the tunnels,” the Nepal army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet told the Reuters news agency on Monday.About 250 people were rescued from the Upper Trishuli hydroelectric project over the weekend, and army engineers began blasting operations at the site to rescue another 42 workers thought be missing, as my colleague notes in this story.Many people are feared to still be trapped in the sprawling network of mud-filled tunnels at hydropower sites along the Trishuli River, which flows through central Nepal.Key events39m agoNepal tourism department publishes list of names of missing people53m agoDeath toll from Nepal-China flood disaster exceeds 1,000, authorities sayAt least 11,814 people have been rescued so far, according to Nepalese authorities.Emergency crews are using aircraft to reach stranded communities in areas where roads and bridges have been destroyed by the flooding and landslides.An aerial view shows the damaged Ghatbesi Bridge over the Trishuli River in the aftermath of flash floods in Nepal’s Dhading district. Photograph: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty ImagesNepal tourism department publishes list of names of missing peopleNepal’s tourism department published a list of the names of the people still missing, as of Sunday evening, after the catastrophic flooding in the district of Rasuwa, one of the worst-hit provinces in Nepal. It said there were 164 people from Nepal that remain unaccounted for and 25 from China.It said a total of 583 foreigners were missing, with the highest number from India (183), followed by the US (64) and then Malaysia (55). There are 33 people from the UK that have been identified as missing.Beijing’s state media reports that 16 people died in Tibet, with 546 missing, but advocacy groups have accused China of heavily underreporting the death toll from flooding in border regions with Nepal, raising questions about Beijing’s official account of the scale of the disaster.The Red Cross estimates that more than 93,000 people have been affected by the disaster, heightening fears that the climate crisis is destabilising the geology of mountain and polar regions.The Nepali prime minister, Balendra Shah, said the flood was an “unprecedented and devastating natural disaster” and that it was difficult to compile a complete assessment of the damage.The flood was “caused by glacier instability under the long-term effects of global warming”, China’s state-run CCTV reported, saying ​it was a “new and prominent feature of cryosphere ‌disasters” on the Tibetan plateau.Two ​Nepali officials said China had ​not shared much information on glacier risks and water levels after a meeting to strengthen cooperation earlier this year, and they feared that could hamper future disaster preparedness.locatorYou can read more in this story by my colleagues, Cait Kelly and William Christou, here:Death toll from Nepal-China flood disaster exceeds 1,000, authorities sayThe death toll from the catastrophic flooding in Nepal and China has passed 1,000 as of Tuesday morning, officials said, with authorities reportedly burying hundreds of unidentified victims after the flood disaster overwhelmed morgues.Nepal’s disaster agency said in an update on Tuesday that 987 deaths had been counted there, with 3,916 people missing, including 583 foreigners.Chinese authorities, in their latest update on Sunday, reported 16 deaths and 546 people still missing.Armed police officers stand near bodies that are about to be transferred to the pit at the Devghat mass burial site in Chitwan, Nepal. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/ReutersThe initial 72 hours after a disaster are viewed as critical to a rescue operation and there are fading hopes that the missing will be found alive.Rescue efforts nonetheless persist, but have been complicated by challenging terrain, persistently high flood waters and difficult weather.The devastating floods occurred last Wednesday when a huge section of a glacier in the Himalayas came loose and crashed on to the valley floor in Nepal’s Langtang national park, unleashing a massive wall of water and mud that rushed down rivers and valleys.The resulting floods obliterated villages and destroyed vital infrastructure such as power stations, roads and bridges.Nepal army soldiers undertake a rescue operation at the site of a hydropower project in Upper Trishuli, Nepal. Photograph: Nepali Army/APMuch of the rescue efforts are now focused on trying to reach the 900 or so missing hydropower workers, hundreds of whom are feared trapped in the tunnels and underground areas of 12 hydropower projects in Nepal.“A large amount of debris has been deposited and that is posing us a big challenge to open the tunnels,” the Nepal army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet told the Reuters news agency on Monday.About 250 people were rescued from the Upper Trishuli hydroelectric project over the weekend, and army engineers began blasting operations at the site to rescue another 42 workers thought be missing, as my colleague notes in this story.Many people are feared to still be trapped in the sprawling network of mud-filled tunnels at hydropower sites along the Trishuli River, which flows through central Nepal.