Nepal Floods, Landslide Surge Kill 95 Near China Border
A flash flood along the Nepal-Tibet border has killed at least 95 people, with 384 still missing, including foreign tourists and Nepali citizens. Rescue crews…
KATHMANDU — Flash floods and a landslide-linked surge hit the Nepal-China border on Wednesday, killing at least 95 people and leaving 384 missing, according to reports from Nepal’s prime minister’s office and the country’s tourism board. The disaster tore through villages, roads and hydropower projects along the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers.
The scale of the missing list is broad. Nepal’s Tourism Board said 291 foreign nationals and 91 Nepali citizens were unaccounted for, while rescue teams scrambled to reach people stranded on rooftops and along washed-out riverbanks.
Népal rescue crews search damaged river corridors
Officials in Nepal said the flooding affected Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading and Gorkha, north of Kathmandu. The Bhotekoshi flooded around 9 a.m. Wednesday, and authorities told residents in several districts to stay away from the banks of the Bhotekoshi, Trishuli and Narayani rivers.
Helicopters were used to winch stranded people from rooftops, CNN reported. Footage from the border area showed torrents of water hammering settlements near the Nepal-China line, with entire stretches of land submerged.
Nepal police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle said at least 28 police officials were among the missing, according to The Associated Press. Sunil Sharma, a Nepal Tourism Board spokesperson, said 133 of the missing were from India and were on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet. He also said 47 people from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 24 from Canada were missing.
The tourism board said people from at least 26 countries had been present in the affected area. That detail matters. The flood has become a cross-border emergency, not only a domestic disaster. Search teams now face the harder job of identifying who was in the river corridor and where they were headed when the water rose.
What triggered the flood surge
Nepal’s foreign minister said an earthquake triggered a large landslide, which then blocked the Bhote Koshi river and sent a torrent of water downstream from China into Nepal, CNN reported. The U.S. Geological Survey initially reported shaking at 8:37 a.m. local time, but later clarified it was not an earthquake and instead came from an exceptionally powerful landslide that registered as the equivalent of a magnitude 5.2 earthquake.
China also reported deaths and disappearances across the border. State broadcaster CCTV said a mudslide in Tibet’s Gyirong County killed at least three people and left 265 missing, based on a preliminary count. CNN said three people were killed in China and more than 250 were missing.
The United States said it was tracking the situation closely. A State Department spokesperson said the agency was aware of Americans impacted by the floods in Nepal and was in touch with the Government of Nepal. The U.S. embassy in Nepal urged citizens in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Gorkha, Chitwan and Tanahun to stay away from riverbanks and low-lying areas, seek higher ground and follow local instructions.
For Nepal, the immediate question is access. Roads are gone in places, villages are cut off, and the riverbanks remain unstable. Rescuers are still digging through debris and floodwater, while officials say the numbers can change fast. At least 95 people are confirmed dead. 384 are still missing.
