Central Nepal Floods

A frantic search is underway for more than 1,300 people missing after catastrophic flooding swamped a China-Nepal border region Wednesday. Dozens of Americans are among the at least 700 foreigners unaccounted for. President Donald Trump said the US is willing to send “any help” to Nepal.

• Hundreds killed: The death toll in Nepal has climbed to at least 389 people, authorities said. CNN’s team on the ground has seen destroyed bridges and buried houses. Here’s how you can help.

• Secondary threat: Rain and chilly weather is expected in China’s Gyirong County, where it’s feared a dam created during the initial landslide could breach and cause more flooding.

• What caused it? Scientists are still working to determine exactly what caused the disaster. The US Geological Survey said a glacial collapse – when a large section of ice breaks off and falls down a slope – and landslide was behind the disaster.

There are warnings of more possible flooding in northern Nepal as rescuers search for survivors of a flash flood that has killed at least 469 people in the country.Roads are caked in mud in Trishuli, with some vehicles half-buried.

Police barricades block off entry to some of the worst-affected areas near the river beds, with warnings of more possible flooding to come.The casualty figures continue to rise, in what has become the worst disaster Nepal has seen since an earthquake in 2015.This time experts believe a glacier collapsing could have triggered the flooding.Helicopters are still flying over the mountains, searching for survivors, and delivering relief supplies.Hundreds of people have been rescued, including most of the 450 people trapped in a tunnel in Trishuli.

Rescue efforts continue, and moments like these offer hope to the families we meet who are desperately waiting for news of their loved ones.

More than 390 bodies have been recovered, and more than 1,500 people are missing across Nepal and China’s Tibet region after a huge collapse of mud and rock into a Himalayan river triggered catastrophic flooding across local towns and valleys, authorities have said.

Rescue teams waded through mud on Thursday, searching for the missing, as authorities in Nepal said at least 392 people have been killed there.

At least three people have died in the neighbouring Tibet region.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited the mudslide site in Tibet on Thursday afternoon to “guide emergency rescue and relief work” a day after the disaster, state media reported.

Nepal’s Department of Tourism said in figures released on Thursday that 668 tourists from 34 countries had been out of contact since Wednesday morning, most of them on trekking expeditions.

Among them are at least 177 from India, 90 from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from the United Kingdom, and 25 from Canada. Beijing’s foreign ministry also said 100 Chinese nationals were among the missing in Nepal.

In Tibet’s Gyirong county, 558 people are reported missing, including 260 foreign nationals, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Search and rescue operations are proving to be a “massive challenge” as simply “getting to the affected areas … to try and recover the survivors” is proving to be extremely difficult, because the roads and bridges there have suffered extensive damage, said Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez, reporting from the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.

A mix of government and private helicopters have “been drafted to fly into the areas to try to bring as many survivors as possible” to hospitals to receive treatment for injuries that doctors say include broken ribcages and skin burns, said Fernandez.

Video footage from Wednesday, verified by news agencies, showed rapid torrents of water and debris sweeping away dozens of people at a border crossing in Gyirong, while downstream in Nepal, homes, roads, and power infrastructure were destroyed.

Nepal’s disaster authority said on Thursday that a lake, which formed at the site where the floods occurred, was rising and at risk of bursting.

Army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet said helicopters were dropping tents, food, and medicine, provided by neighbouring India, into the hardest-hit districts. More than 5,000 army and police rescue personnel have joined the rescue effort, he said.

On Friday, Nepal News reported that the army had rescued 350 workers and residents trapped in a tunnel at the Upper Trishuli hydropower project, working in poor weather and high river flows.

India evacuated thousands of people from the states bordering Nepal, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, as the floods threatened the Gandak River Basin.

Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah left by road for Bidur in one of the worst-affected districts of Nuwakot to assess the flood situation, his office said on social media.

Early reports from Nepalese officials suggested an earthquake in the area may have caused the lower section of a glacier to collapse, triggering the flash floods.

However, the US Geological Survey noted that the seismic event, initially recorded as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake, was actually the seismic energy generated by the sudden collapse of glacial rock and ice, followed by a huge debris flow.

Preliminary satellite imagery analysis by Planet Labs indicated that a landslide of ice and rock triggered a debris-laden surge down the Lhende River, approximately 20 kilometres (12 miles) northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border crossing between Nepal and China.

In the affected valleys, thick mud swathed homes, trees, and vehicles, while aerial footage showed collapsed houses, submerged cars, and a metallic bridge washed away by the torrents.Nepal’s National Planning Commission and National Statistics Office are launching a study into the extent of the damage inflicted on the economy. The flood struck 15 hydropower projects and shut down an estimated 431 megawatts of generating capacity, with heavy damage to the Rasuwagadhi, Chilime and Sanjen plants.“There is devastation everywhere we look,” said Tula Bahadur BK, a healthcare worker in Rasuwa. “The settlements next to the river have been completely swept away. Five of my own relatives are missing.”

Others caught in the disaster were on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar, high-altitude sites in Tibet revered by Hindus, Buddhists, and followers of other faiths.

International response

The US Department of State announced it was dispatching a disaster response adviser and providing $500,000 in emergency aid.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney described the flooding as “devastating”, adding that Canadian officials were monitoring the situation closely.

Tom Fletcher, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, announced that $2m will be allocated from the UN’s Global Emergency Fund CERF for Nepal relief efforts.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had earlier confirmed that UN teams were delivering emergency supplies and support staff to Nepal’s affected communities.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese noted that gathering clear information from the remote area remained challenging due to limited local infrastructure and resources. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Friday that Canberra would give $3.6m in aid to communities hit by the flooding along the Nepal-China border and send extra consular staff to the area.

The flood highlights Nepal’s growing exposure to climate hazards, Sunil Acharya, a climate and public policy specialist, told Al Jazeera.

“It is not simply an unpredictable natural hazard. It is a brutal example of what it means to be living on the front line of climate crisis,” said Acharya, speaking from Kathmandu.

Nepal can only do so much to prevent such disasters, he said, adding that the government does not have enough resources to deal with the climate crisis on its own.

“International cooperation in limiting greenhouse gases so that the global warming doesn’t cause further damage like this is very imperative.”

  • US president Donald Trump said the flooding was terrible to see, describing how “strong, well-built buildings were wiped out like they were toothpicks”.

  • Nepalese officials said dozens of bridges were destroyed and nearly 40km of roads damaged, complicating search efforts.

  • The Nepalese army had rescued more than 100 people by helicopter, an army spokesperson said. Army teams also evacuated people trapped inside facilities linked to the Trishuli hydropower project, he said. Dozens of injured people were transported to Kathmandu for medical care.

  • Rescuers found bodies in Nepal’s Chitwan district, hundreds of kilometres downstream from the hardest-hit areas.

  • The Nepal Red Cross Society said it had shifted focus from rescue to large-scale relief operations in the flood-hit districts.

  • China’s premier, Li Qiang, arrived in Gyirong on Thursday to direct rescue efforts, alongside 500 military and paramilitary personnel.

  • UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said he ordered the release of $2m from the UN’s central emergency response fund to help with medical care, shelter and water.

Summary of the latest: rescuers search for hundreds of missing

Here’s a snapshot of the latest developments in the Nepal-Tibet disaster to bring you up to speed.

  • Rescue teams and military helicopters have been searching on Thursday for hundreds of missing people along the mountainous Nepal-Tibet border after a huge torrent of water and mud swept through communities following a glacier collapse.

  • More than 390 people were killed, authorities in Nepal and China said, and more than 1,400 were missing, including hundreds of foreigners and pilgrims.

  • Nepal and China both warned of fresh ⁠flooding risks in the Himalayas. Chinese authorities said an artificial lake formed after a mudslide hit the Tibet-Nepal border faced a “high risk of breaching and sending floodwaters downstream”, according to state media. Nepal’s disaster authority said a lake formed by debris blocking a ​river at the flood site was also rising and ‌at risk of bursting.

  • More than 500 foreigners were among 826 people missing in Nepal, police and tourism ⁠officials said. Among those unaccounted for were 177 from India, 90 from the US, 39 from Australia, 33 from the UK and 25 from Canada.

  • Chinese state media said at least 558 were missing on the Tibet side of the border, of whom at least 260 were foreign nationals.

  • The Red Cross said about 93,000 people might have been affected, while assessments continued in hard-to-reach areas. It launched an emergency appeal for $31m to respond to the disaster.

“According to forecasts, inflows into the lake could reach about 3 million cubic meters over the next three days amid continued rainfall, increasing the risk of a breach that could send floodwaters downstream and potentially cause further damage in areas including Gyirong Port and elsewhere downstream”, state news agency Xinhua said late on Thursday, cited by AFP.

Posted on 2026/08/28 08:37 AM