Death toll rises, rescuers search for 1,400 missing after Nepal-Tibet floods

(AFP) — Rescue teams waded through mud Thursday searching for more than 1,400 people missing after flash floods and landslides struck the Nepal-Tibet border, as the death toll rose sharply to at least 362, with entire villages swept away.Experts warned of the risk of further flooding a day after a devastating, tsunami-like wall of freezing water and mud wiped out towns under a torrent of sludge, engulfing homes, smashing bridges and dams and sweeping away vehicles.Many of the missing are foreign tourists, including scores of Hindu pilgrims to Tibet’s sacred, snow-capped Mount Kailash.According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the disaster was caused by a glacial collapse that triggered a vast flow of icy debris.Emergency teams raced to rescue survivors from affected areas, while Nepali soldiers used sniffer dogs to search for bodies buried under the mud.“Everything is finished,” Omkar Joshi, a 35-year-old Nepali customs agent rescued from a hilltop in the border town of Timure, told AFP.“It is a giant graveyard. All that is left are sand and pebbles, soaked red by human blood.”Nepali police said they had recovered 359 bodies.Another 910 people, including 517 foreign tourists, were out of contact in the country. Beijing said 100 Chinese citizens were missing in Nepal.In China, state media said the “mudslide disaster” at Gyirong Port in Tibet killed three people, while 558 people, including 260 foreigners, were missing.Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited the area Thursday, state media said, to oversee “emergency rescue and relief work, and to visit rescue workers and affected people.”Li Qipu, a member of China’s paramilitary People’s Armed Police, cited “the instability of a reservoir lake upstream” and “the narrow mountain road” as factors complicating rescue efforts.China’s Tibet Autonomous Region is largely inaccessible to foreign journalists.‘Inland tsunami’Prime Minister Balendra Shah, who urged the Himalayan nation to “stand together” hours after the disaster, visited some of the hardest-hit areas Thursday.Shah told local authorities to “provide immediate relief to displaced families” and open blocked roads, his office said in a statement.The foreigners out of contact included Indians and others from Australia, Britain, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea and the United States, Nepal’s tourism board said.The sudden rush of mud and debris was “like an inland tsunami,” traveling nearly 170 kilometers (105 miles) south into Nepal, said environmental historian Ruth Gamble of Australia’s La Trobe University.Rasuwa, in northern Nepal, was the first district affected, but deaths were reported as far south as Chitwan, on the border with India.Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India, said he would “pray for all those who have lost their lives.”Chinese government officials in Tibet mobilized nearly 800 emergency workers, as well as sniffer dogs and speedboats, to assist in rescue efforts, the official Xinhua News Agency said.Promises of aid and assistance came soon after reports revealed the scale of the disaster.The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was sending emergency supplies, including blankets, first-aid kits, stretchers and body bags.Glacial collapseThe U.S. Geological Survey said the flood was triggered by a glacial collapse, which caused seismic activity and “catastrophic” downstream impacts in Nepal and Tibet.“This event was initially reported as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake,” it said, but analysis of seismic recordings found it instead was a “glacial collapse and debris flow.”Climate change is causing glaciers to melt worldwide, increasing the risks of glacial lake floods and glacial collapses.Fears of further flooding remained, with water trapped behind immense piles of debris blocking the valley.“With a blockage still lodged upstream on the Nepal-China border river, authorities warn a second flood may occur,” said Qianggong Zhang, head of climate and environmental risks at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.Kathmandu’s Flood Forecasting Division issued a “special notice” Thursday, warning of a growing lake behind debris left by the landslide.“Residents of downstream areas of the Bhote Koshi River, travellers, rescue personnel, and all concerned are requested to exercise extreme caution,” it said.Scores of Hindu devotees from around the world are among the hundreds missing along the border, Indian spiritual leader Sadhguru said Thursday.They were returning from a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash on the Chinese side of the border when they were caught in the floods at an immigration post.“The entire group was there in the building,” Sadhguru said in a video message to his millions of followers, weeping as he spoke from Tibet, with the anguished wails of other pilgrims heard in the background.“This is a terrible and extraordinary event.”Categories / InternationalSubscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads