Nepal halts flood rescue efforts as weather worsens and thousands remain missing

Kathmandu, Nepal. Nepal suspended search and rescue operations on Saturday because of bad weather and said it needed foreign technical assistance after a glacier collapse triggered devastating flooding near the Tibetan border.

The flooding has killed at least 626 people in Nepal and seven in China’s Tibet, while nearly 3,000 people remain missing.

Rescue operations halted

“Search and rescue operations have been temporarily halted because it is raining and the weather is foggy,” Narendra Pariyar, the top bureaucrat in the badly hit Rasuwa district, told Reuters.

Authorities were focusing on arranging land transport to move rescued pilgrims to Kathmandu, Pariyar said.

Rescue operations were also briefly suspended on Friday after a lake formed across the Nepal-China border following the flood began overflowing into Nepal’s Lhende Khola and Trishuli rivers.

Flood damage and missing people

The huge torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris swept through mountain river systems on Wednesday after being triggered by a glacier collapse. It destroyed buildings, bridges and power stations.

Nearly 3,000 people remain missing, including about 2,426 in Nepal and at least 558 in Tibet’s Gyirong County. At least 540 of those missing are foreigners, many of them Hindu pilgrims from India.

Nepal, a Himalayan country with a population of 30 million, will need an estimated $4 billion to $5 billion for reconstruction, the finance minister told Reuters.

Ongoing risks from glacial lakes

Nepal is monitoring two lakes upstream of the flood zone. An official warned that flood risks would persist until both lakes had fully drained.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Friday, citing analysis by the water resources ministry, that one of the lakes was shrinking. However, a Chinese government geohazards expert said the lake could be unstable and warned that more than 100 glacial lakes in the area could also pose a threat.