Nearly 1,500 Missing After Himalayan Mudslide Triggers Floods in Nepal and Tibet

Kathmandu, Nepal. Nearly 1,500 people, including at least 800 foreign nationals, were missing across Nepal and China’s Tibet on Thursday after a wall of mud and rock collapsed into a Himalayan river, causing catastrophic floods through towns and valleys. Police said the death toll, which stood at 165, was expected to rise.

Search and rescue operations

Rescuers in Nepal used helicopters to search for survivors and deliver emergency supplies to thousands of people cut off after Wednesday’s disaster in a rugged mountainous region frequented by trekkers and pilgrims travelling between Lhasa in Tibet and Kathmandu.

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“This will go up, as we have resumed the search and more bodies are expected to be recovered,” police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle told Reuters.

Foreign nationals among those missing

Police and tourism officials said 826 people were missing in Nepal, including almost 600 foreign nationals.

The missing tourists came from more than two dozen countries. They included 177 people from India, 63 from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 25 from Canada.

In Tibet’s Gyirong county, 558 people were missing, including 260 foreign nationals, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Damage and survivor account

Verified videos showed water and debris sweeping away dozens of people at a border crossing in Gyirong. Homes, roads and power projects were also washed away further downstream in Nepal.

“It was a huge gush of mud coming straight towards us,” said 68-year-old survivor Keshav Prasad Baral, who was receiving hospital treatment.

“As it got closer, it kept rising higher and higher. When I saw it enter our home, I tried to grab my wife’s hand and take her to the terrace. But she was swept away by the mud.”

A helicopter took Baral to safety four hours later. “My wife is still somewhere beneath the mud,” he said. “She’s gone.”