Rescue teams in Nepal and China worked through scenes of devastation Friday, pulling survivors coated in thick brown mud from flood-hit areas while helicopters ferried stranded residents to safety after catastrophic flash floods killed more than 500 people and left over 1,500 others missing.
Nepal’s disaster management authority said the confirmed death toll in the country had climbed to 538, with more than 3,700 people rescued so far. Nepali police later reported an even higher figure, putting the number of dead at 547.
Across the border in China, details about survivors remained scarce. State media reported Friday that the death toll there had risen to five, while broadcasts showed villagers being evacuated and officials coordinating emergency relief operations.
Chinese state media had earlier said 558 people were missing. In Nepal, the disaster management authority reported Friday that 977 people were still unaccounted for, including hundreds of foreign nationals who had traveled to the region for work, trekking or pilgrimage to a sacred mountain peak.
Authorities warn of further flooding from a new lake
Nepali police issued a new warning Friday after receiving reports that a dam on the Tibet side had burst. Security forces, rescuers and relief teams were instructed to remain on high alert and move immediately to safer ground if conditions worsened.
Authorities have not confirmed whether the reported dam breach is connected to earlier concerns over a barrier lake that formed high in the Himalayas on the Chinese side after the initial flash floods. Chinese broadcaster CCTV said the lake sits at an elevation of 9,680 feet.
Officials in both Nepal and China had already warned that the overflowing barrier lake could trigger additional flooding. Residents in areas at risk were urged to evacuate and seek higher, safer ground.
Nepal police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle told The Associated Press that search-and-rescue efforts were still underway, though crews were operating under heightened caution. “It hasn’t stopped,” he said.
Although the new lake is located more than 6 miles from Gyirong Port, the hard-hit border crossing with Nepal, rescue workers heading to the disaster zone were ordered to stop temporarily Friday morning owing to concern the lake would overflow.
Some 680 rescuers eventually reached the hardest-hit area at Gyirong by foot and via rafts after much effort. Some were dropped down from drones flown to the area, CCTV footage showed.
Thousands of people have been evacuated, others await rescue
Nepali Army rescuers were working to help people trapped in a hydropower tunnel in Rasuwa, part of the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project.
Video from the scene show rescuers helping the man, covered in dark brown mud, out of the tunnel by pulling and pushing. He was one of likely dozens trapped in the tunnel.
Army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet told the AP the focus was on survivors.
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“It is complicated to find the entry and exit points of the tunnel because everything has been covered by mud,” Basnet said. “Our first priority is rescuing the stranded people.”
Nepal’s disaster management authority said 3,253 people had been airlifted by helicopter from the disaster area. Survivors, including injured people, were taken to Kathmandu and other locations.
Some felt the ground shake, then saw a ‘black storm’
Scientists who’ve studied satellite images said bedrock underneath a glacier high in the Himalayan region had collapsed, taking part of the glacier with it. The rockfall was so extreme that it reached a magnitude 5.2 seismic measurement. The rocks and melted water then swelled the rivers in the valleys below, causing a torrent of water that swept buildings, bridges and earth downstream in Tibet and Nepal.
Customs officer Karbir Gaire was among some of the survivors in Timure, the closest Nepalese village to the border with China, where some 1,500 people had lived.
Gaire reached his office around 8 a.m. Wednesday and was working on his computer when he first felt the ground shake.
“Right after the shake, I noticed a black storm coming towards us,” he recalled from Kathmandu, where he is back with family. “We all immediately started running out, and within a few seconds, we were climbing uphill on the opposite side of our office building. I think those 10 or so seconds saved some of us.”
Gaire doesn’t remember exactly how many people were in the office when the disaster struck, but 15 colleagues have gone missing. “It was like a Hollywood movie scene. I don’t call it a flood, it was a tsunami.”
Families around the world hope for news of loved ones
Nepal’s tourism board has said that among the missing are more than 500 foreigners.
About 90 Americans were unaccounted for. US President Donald Trump said the flooding was terrible to see, and he told reporters in the Oval Office he offered to provide Nepalese leaders “anything they want.”
Rajan Tamang, a restaurant owner in New York City, said he learned from family in Kathmandu that his mother and sister were among those who died, while many other relatives and friends remained missing.
“My family was just waking up, and they didn’t even get any information, and suddenly this flood came. Some of them are missing, some of them lost their life and only a few is alive,” he told the AP after a vigil in New York.
Some of the missing may have been on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists and others.
Vishnuram Ramaswamy, who works at a private company in the southern Indian city of Puducherry, said that he last spoke to his mother and two sisters who were on that pilgrimage Wednesday morning. It was a highly anticipated trip, something his mother had always wanted to do, he said.
“My mother said they were on their way towards the border area and said they’ll reach their hotel and call us,” he said. While he’s in touch with government officials, and the travel agency, there’s been no news.
“This was the last we spoke to them. They have been unreachable since.”
