Nepal death toll rises to 469 as Irish citizens named

Rescue teams using heavy machinery dug through mud and debris in Nepalese towns devastated by a flash flood two days ago, as hopes of finding survivors faded ‌and officials worked to reduce the risk of further catastrophic flooding. The confirmed death toll in Nepal rose to 469 people early on Friday, with almost 1,000 more missing there and in neighbouring Tibet, near where a glacier collapse on Wednesday morning sent a huge torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris cascading ​through Himalayan mountain river systems. Two Irish citizens who are missing in Nepal have been identified as Santosh Sahu and Spandan Sahu by the country’s department of tourism.The men’s names were among a list of more than 500 unaccounted for tourists published by the department on Thursday night. According to the department, Spandan is 18 and Santosh is 46.READ MOREIreland’s Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed it was working to account for the two Irish citizens it said were visiting the area. It said it was closely monitoring the situation and working with partners to locate them.[ Irish citizens missing in Nepal appear on list of unaccounted for tourists after flash floodOpens in new window ]“As with all consular cases, the department does not comment on the detail on individual cases,” a spokesman said.Santosh and Spandan Sahu were part of a group travelling with Alpine Eco Trek, which offers guided tours and expeditions in Nepal. They were on a pilgrimage with 15 others to Gosainkunda, a lake considered to be sacred by Hindus and Buddhists in Nepal’s Langtang National Park, according to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon).A man show a photo on his phone to the police while searching for a missing relative at Bir Hospital in Kathmandu on Friday. Photograph: Prakash Methema/AFPGetty Relatives of missing people wait for news at Trishuli camp, in Nepal's Nuwakot district on Friday. Photograph: Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty The flood ripped through villages and valleys, destroying power stations, roads and bridges along a route that links Kathmandu with Lhasa in Tibet and is popular with trekkers and pilgrims. Of those missing, at least 540 are foreigners. Authorities in Nepal used helicopters to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands cut off in towns and valleys, while emergency services – some using sniffer dogs – recovered dozens of bodies swept down into the plains.Dibga Tamang was among the last people rescued from the hard-hit town of Rasuwa on Thursday, airlifted along with three others to an army ​camp in Nuwakot.“All of our people have gone. They are dead,” Tamang said. “I have no one left waiting for me. Everything and everyone is gone. The end.”Military personnel take rescued from a helicopter at an army camp on Friday in the town of Battar Bazar, Nepal. Photograph: Prabin Ranabhat/AFP/Getty A woman is overcome with grief as she waits for her turn to board a rescue helicopter in the disaster-stricken Rasuwa district near Nepal’s border with Tibet, on Thursday. Photograh: Atul Loke/The New York Times The sheer amount of water and debris stirred up now risks triggering a further disaster.Nepal’s disaster management authority warned that a lake formed by debris ⁠blocking the Bhotekoshi river was rising and at risk of bursting, while on the other side of the border China said that about three million cubic metres of water – the equivalent of about 1,200 Olympic-sized swimming ‌pools – ‌was ​expected to flow into an already dammed lake over the next three days.There is a high risk the lake could breach, with peak flow expected around September 1st, Chinese state media said, citing the water resources ministry. Chinese authorities have mobilised an eight-member engineering team to conduct aerial surveys and 3D modelling of the barrier lake, but accessing it was challenging. “After the glacier ⁠collapse created the lake, many isolated cliffs and steep cliffs appeared along it,” one of the engineers, Chen ​Hanxiao, told CCTV. Chen said the general approach to reducing the lake’s threat is to excavate a drainage channel at ​a lower point of the dam but the width and depth of that channel needed calculations based on how fast the water will flow and how quickly the lake will fill. Their next tasks were to monitor the lake and collect data from the ‌lake floor, as well as weather monitoring in the coming days.[ ‘Saved by a tree’: How a Nepali worker survived flash floodOpens in new window ]Chinese rescuers had yet to reach the worst-hit area on the Chinese side of the border, the Gyirong border crossing, by Thursday evening, state media reports indicated, as crews worked to clear debris from the key access road leading ⁠to the area.Damaged buildings in a line of mud more than 200m high after a torrent of water, mud and ice swept through a valley in the Rasuwa district near Nepal’s border with Tibet. Photograph: Atul Loke/The New York Times Dramatic footage on Wednesday showed enormous torrents of muddy water and debris tearing through ⁠structures in the border crossing area within seconds and engulfing people ​trying to flee.The tally of missing in Tibet’s Gyirong County was 558, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday, including 260 foreign nationals. So far, just three people have been confirmed dead on the Chinese side.China’s Premier Li Qiang, the country’s number two official, arrived at the disaster-stricken site in Gyirong on Thursday afternoon, state-run Xinhua news agency said. The visit suggested Beijing was treating the disaster as a matter of the highest national priority.US pesident Donald Trump said ‌the United States had offered support to Nepal.“Nobody’s ever seen anything ⁠quite like that, where very powerful, strong, well-built buildings were wiped out like they were toothpicks. It’s a terrible thing. We are sending aid and we’ve spoken to the leadership and we let them know anything they want, they’ll have,” he said.Nepal’s prime minister Balendra Shah, who visited flood-hit Nuwakot on Thursday, said the situation was still difficult.“All the state agencies are ​operating at full capacity. Our first priority now is to save life of each citizen, search and rescue of the missing, treat the injured and provide immediate relief to ​the affected families,” he said.The disaster is a major challenge for Shah’s five-month-old government but officials said the country had systems and officials who have experience in handling such tragedies, including the 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people.