The death toll from devastating flash floods that hit Nepal and areas along the border with China has risen to 750, with around 3,000 people still missing as rescue operations enter their fourth day.
Nepal’s disaster agency said 734 people had died and 2,498 were still missing, while Chinese authorities reported 16 deaths and 546 people missing. Among the missing are more than 100 Nepalis and people from more than a dozen countries.
Bad weather and difficult terrain have continued to hamper air rescue operations in the affected areas.
In Nuwakot, one of the districts worst affected by the floods, helicopters resumed operations before noon on Saturday after bad weather temporarily halted rescue efforts.
Some helicopters transported relief materials such as clothing, instant noodles, crackers and rice, while others returned from flood-affected communities carrying survivors.
Families of missing people have gathered outside a military camp near Nuwakot, anxiously awaiting information about their loved ones.
A Nepalese military official told CBS News that its search and rescue helicopters could make a total of 15 trips per hour in and out of the disaster zone, equivalent to about 500 trips per day. Each flight carries a handful of people, and some survivors are carried on stretchers.
Authorities said more than 3,700 people had been rescued in Nepal so far. Hundreds of those still missing are foreigners who were in the region for work, hiking or a pilgrimage to a sacred peak on the Tibetan side of the border.
Amid the continuing search for survivors, Nepal issued a warning Sunday about the possibility of waters rising further.
“We have received information that the flood flow in the Bhotekoshi River in Rasuwa has increased further,” the country’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said in an alert obtained by Agence France-Presse.
“Therefore, all personnel involved in search, rescue and relief operations, those in riverine areas and all others in affected areas including Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading and Chitwan are requested to exercise caution.”
The US State Department said on Saturday it was providing more than $3.6 million in humanitarian assistance to Nepal. The aid includes three months of emergency food support that is expected to benefit up to 10,000 households.
More than 100 workers trapped in tunnels
Nepal’s government said more than 100 workers could still be alive and trapped inside tunnels at hydropower projects, with rescue efforts focused on the Trishuli 3A and 3B sites.
Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha clarified that workers were not necessarily trapped in one location, saying that “rescue efforts are underway at multiple tunnel sites.”
Rescuers have reached some people using baskets and ropes from helicopters, but have faced four to five feet of mud and limited landing areas, the brigadier general said. General Raja Ram Basnet said.
On Saturday, rescuers cut through the mud at Trishuli 3A and began sending air into the tunnel, while excavation efforts continued. The Energy Ministry also said efforts had been launched to send a camera into the tunnel.
Specialist Indian and Chinese tunnel rescue teams have joined the operation, along with Nepalese mountain rescue teams, who have experience helping climbers on peaks such as Mount Everest.
Photos released by Nepal’s disaster office showed rescuers moving through thick mud and avoiding large boulders deposited by floodwaters.
Priti Kharel said she believed her brother Milan was among those trapped. Milan, a geologic engineer with Doosan Enerbility, has not been heard from since the floods.
“It’s been four days now,” Kharel said. “We want the government to rescue him as soon as possible.”
Nepali Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said locating those still missing was “currently our national priority.”
He said the government had requested specialized assistance from neighboring countries for tunnel rescue operations, survivor detection technology, rapid DNA and forensic analysis and refrigerators for morgues.
Khanal said an 11-member tunnel rescue reconnaissance team from India had been deployed, while a similar team from China was expected to arrive shortly.
Families wait for news
At aid centers and hospitals, families have continued searching for their missing relatives as the death toll rises.
In Kathmandu, relatives gathered outside the main government hospital, checking help desks and notice boards for information about missing people and injured survivors.
Posters with photographs and contact details of missing relatives covered parts of the hospital, while photographs of unidentified bodies were also displayed to help families identify them.
Gajendra Rawat, head of security at the hospital’s help desk, said around 1,600 people have been reported missing so far.
“People come from all over Nepal,” he said.
Dil Maya Lama, who traveled from Ramechhap in search of her missing 26-year-old brother, said: “I came here in the hope of finding him. There is no information about him.”
Another relative, Nelza Moktan, said: “I feel desperate. It’s been four days now.”
In Nuwakot, families gathered around lists of missing and dead people posted at a relief center.
Rajesh Kumar Ram, who was searching for his son, said, “I am hoping that by chance my son is somewhere. Maybe he will be found trapped somewhere. I am just waiting for that moment.”
The Red Cross said about 90,000 people had probably been affected by the flooding.
Khanal said Nepal had received more than 57 metric tonnes of relief supplies from India, with additional assistance coming from China, Japan, Australia and other countries.
More flood fears
Rescuers have remained on alert for the risk of additional flooding due to a new lake formed high in the Himalayas after the initial disaster.
Experts warned that the lake, created after a glacial collapse caused flooding, had begun to overflow. Basnet said rescue teams had temporarily relocated following warnings of possible new flooding.
However, monitoring data from China’s Ministry of Water Resources showed that the lake had shrunk in size by Friday night, and its water level had fallen 32 feet from its peak on Thursday morning, according to Chinese broadcaster CCTV.
Scientists said satellite images suggested the initial flood was triggered when the bedrock beneath a glacier in the Himalayan region collapsed, taking part of the glacier with it.
The massive rockfall was reportedly recorded as a magnitude 5.2 seismic event, sending rocks and meltwater into rivers and generating torrents that swept away buildings, bridges and land across Tibet and Nepal.
Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz in Austria, who currently resides in Bangladesh, said that “a lower part of a glacier has actually broken off.”
I kept the quoted statements intact, kept the names as given, and adjusted the story to a Nigerian newspaper-style structure of approximately 700 words.
(CBS)
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