KATHMANDU, Nepal — A flash flood tore down the Budhi Gandaki River in Nepal’s Gorkha district on Sunday, sweeping away about a dozen houses and several bridges and damaging a hydropower project, as authorities urged villagers downstream to move to higher ground, BBC News and ABC News (Australia) reported.
Two women and three men were out of contact, the national disaster authority said, though there were no immediate reports of deaths. The army said 49 people, including a foreigner, had been rescued, and 18 workers at the hydropower project escaped to safety after their camp was damaged, the authority’s chief, Dharam Raj Uprety, said, according to ABC. A highway bridge linking two districts was also washed away.
Authorities said a dry landslide at Chumnubri village, about 100 kilometers west of Kathmandu, had blocked the river and unleashed the flood. The BBC said the cause was still unclear, with some suggesting a landslide had dammed the river or a tributary and others reporting that locals upstream had seen an ice avalanche. Water levels at one point rose from 2 meters to nearly 8.5 meters within a couple of hours. “Our hydrological station was swept away and we are not getting any data from that location,” government meteorologist Binod Parajuli told the BBC.
“We have asked villagers living along the river banks downstream to evacuate and remain safe,” said Dharmendra Kumar Mishra, Gorkha’s most senior administrator. Alerts were issued for the Gorkha, Tanahun, Chitwan, East Nawalparasi and West Nawalparasi districts, and army and police rescuers were monitoring the river by helicopter.
The flood struck on the first day of Dashain, a major festival in Nepal. The Budhi Gandaki feeds the Trishuli River, where a glacier collapse in August caused a catastrophic flood that killed 1,457 people; Nepal has ended the search for the more than 5,000 people still missing from that disaster, ABC reported.
Sources: BBC News, ABC News (Australia)
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