Rescuers claw through mud as Nepal, China flood missing toll nears 3,000

Rescuers in Nepal and China were battling Saturday to locate thousands of people missing days after a deadly, tsunami-like wall of water and debris swept through the Himalayan region, engulfing entire villages.

The latest figures from both countries put the number of missing close to 3,000, with 633 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 want their family’s body back, either dead or alive, but we cannot find them… you can see the mud,” he told AFP, 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 floods in Nepal before, but not like this.”

The US Geological Survey said the disaster on Wednesday on the Tibet-Nepal border was caused by a glacial collapse that created a torrent of debris downstream.

Those that made it out say they have lost everything and now face an agonising wait to discover the fate of missing loved ones, and the prospect of rebuilding their lives from nothing.

“All the settlements near the river were swept away. There is nothing left,” survivor Buddhi Ram Dangol told AFP.

“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.

Samjhana Thing said she had been waiting three days for news of her missing brother.

“We don’t know anything. Hopefully he is in a safe place,” she said.

“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 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.

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.

While the exact cause of the collapse is unclear, climate change is causing glaciers to melt worldwide, increasing the risks of such disasters.

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 the tunnel of the Trishuli 3A hydropower project 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.

Nepal reported a death toll of 626 people on Saturday. There are 2,426 people, including hundreds of foreigners, who are out of contact in Nepal.

Across the border in Tibet, which is largely inaccessible to foreign journalists, seven people died and 554 remain missing, the state Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.

Authorities also said they had evacuated 555 stranded tourists and 499 Chinese residents from Tibet.

In India, authorities said they had recovered seven bodies from rivers flowing from Nepal, believed to be flood victims.

‘All swept away’

On the Nepali side of the border, the military located people trapped in the tunnel of the Trishuli 3A hydropower project, where they were working to find a way in to extract the survivors.

“Two helicopters have been dispatched, but it is challenging because it is tough to even locate the entry points of the tunnel,” army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told AFP.

Some 350 workers and residents have been brought to safety from the site, he added, but efforts were ongoing to rescue more than a hundred trapped in the same area.

Workers rescued from other dam projects along the Trishuli valley described a disaster that unfolded with terrifying speed.

Buddha Tamang told AFP he survived only because he was inside a tunnel at the dam where he worked when the flood struck.

“The senior officers working on the other side, they were all swept away,” Tamang, who was airlifted on Thursday after being marooned for more than 24 hours, told AFP.

‘Pilgrimage route’

Scores of Hindu devotees from across the world are among those missing on the border, as many were on a pilgrimage to Tibet’s Mount Kailash.

Sivaranjani Muthunathan was travelling by bus with 56 others towards the Chinese border when they became stuck in what they thought was a traffic jam.

“Then there was fog, smoke, something that seemed to suddenly engulf us,” Muthunathan, 46, told AFP on Friday, showing a phone video she recorded of a torrent surging towards her.

Around them, vehicles were swept away or buried under mud.

“One by one, we also climbed out through the driver’s side,” then scrambled up a hill, she said.