Across the Himalayas, rescuers are digging through thick mud and mountains of debris in a desperate race to find nearly 3,000 people missing after a devastating wall of water and debris swept through villages in Nepal and China.
Figures from both countries on Saturday put the number of missing close to 3,000, with 682 bodies recovered — and reports of some dead possibly swept downstream as far away as India.
Rescue worker Kawan Koirala, from the Nepal Scout Disaster Response Team, said they were struggling in thick, leg-sucking mud.
“People want their family member’s body back, either dead or alive, but we cannot find them… you can see the mud,” he said, exhausted after an 18-hour shift.
“It is very traumatic for me too. It is my first time seeing these types of things. Everywhere is mud. We faced flood in Nepal before, but not like this.”
The US Geological Survey said the disaster on the Tibet-Nepal border on Wednesday was caused by a glacial collapse that created a torrent of debris downstream.
While the exact cause of the collapse is unclear, climate change is causing glaciers to melt worldwide, increasing the risks of such disasters.
‘Nothing Left’
Survivors face an agonising wait to learn the fate of missing relatives, and the prospect of rebuilding their lives from nothing.
“All the settlements near the river were swept away,” Buddhi Ram Dangol in Nepal’s Nuwakot district said. “There is nothing left.”
At Bidur’s army base, a key rescue hub in the same district, relatives crowded around lists of rescued people pasted on a wall.
“I have come here looking for my son,” said Kalka Sharda, scanning the list in desperation. “He was a labourer at the hydropower plant, but I can’t find his name, and the authorities are not saying anything.”
In an area home to vast energy infrastructure projects, Nepal’s disaster authority listed 933 hydropower workers among the missing, along with 517 foreigners, including trekkers and Hindu pilgrims to Tibet’s sacred Mount Kailash.
‘Enormous’ Trauma
The trauma of Wednesday’s catastrophe has been “enormous”, and as many as 93,000 people may have been affected, the Red Cross said, with the death toll expected to rise.
Nepal’s reconstruction bill could run into “billions of dollars,” Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said Saturday.
“The urgency is on rescue and saving lives as much as we can,” he said, appealing for specialised assistance, including heavy-lift drones and technology to help locate people who are trapped.
He also called for forensic testing kits to identify bodies and freezer units to store them, saying bodies that have been in water could decompose at a faster rate.
“Our own healthcare capacity is very limited to put these bodies in a frozen state for a long time,” he said.
Emergency teams worked flat-out to find survivors as widespread devastation left communities short of food and water.
Fears of further flooding have compounded the search for the missing.
The deluge of ice and mud caused huge lakes, and one of these formations has become a risk of further floods.
In Tibet, where Chinese authorities are the only source of information, Beijing had paused its rescue operation at the hardest-hit area of Gyirong over the risk of renewed flooding.
On the Nepali side, soldiers were trying desperately to drill through to 100 people trapped in tunnels at multiple hydropower projects on Saturday.
The prime minister’s office said teams had begun “clearing mud and debris” to open the entrance, while a specialised Indian tunnel rescue unit had arrived to help, with a Chinese team on its way.
Nepal’s expert mountain rescue teams — used to aiding climbers on the world’s highest peaks, including Everest — are also joining the search.
“We do similar work on the mountains, with rescue operations for people trapped in risky places, so I believe our skills will be useful,” Tul Singh Gurung, president of Nepal National Mountain Guide Association, said.
Workers rescued from other dam projects along the Trishuli valley described a disaster that unfolded with terrifying speed.
Pilgrimage Route
Nepal reported a death toll of 675 people on Saturday.
There are 2,426 people, including hundreds of foreigners, who are out of contact in the country.
Across the border in Tibet, which is largely inaccessible to foreign journalists, seven people died, and 554 remain missing, Xinhua state news agency said on Saturday.
Authorities also said they had evacuated 555 stranded tourists and 499 Chinese residents from Tibet.
In India, officials said they had recovered seven bodies from rivers flowing from Nepal, believed to be flood victims.
Hope was fading for some still waiting desperately for news.
Kalka Sharda, in Bidur, was searching lists of rescued for his 18-year-old son Vinod Sharda, a hydropower plant labourer.
“I don’t think there is any hope left,” he said.
“Because if he was alive, he would have found a way to get in touch.”
AFP
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