KATHMANDU, Nepal — Nepal’s disaster agency said Tuesday that 1,003 people have been counted dead and 3,916 remain missing after last Wednesday’s glacial collapse and flash floods along the border with Tibet, pushing the Himalayan disaster past 1,000 confirmed deaths.
China still reported 16 dead and 546 missing in Tibet’s Gyirong County, including 261 foreigners. Nepal said 583 of its missing were foreign nationals. Police in Kathmandu buried unidentified bodies in numbered trenches; a health ministry spokesperson told BBC Nepali that only about 4 percent of roughly 900 recovered bodies had been identified.
Rescue teams, with Chinese and Nepali military personnel and specialists from India, South Korea, and Australia, are still trying to reach workers believed trapped in mud-filled hydropower tunnels along the Trishuli. Prime Minister Balendra Shah said Monday that 279 people had been rescued from the sites. A team entered one tunnel Monday and found no one. Authorities said at least 11,814 people have been rescued overall.
Shah wrote that the floods were “not an ordinary” event and that Himalayan risks are rising with climate change. Australian tunnel expert Arnold Dix told the BBC the landscape looked lunar, with boulders bigger than houses. The Associated Press reported the Tuesday count from Kathmandu.
Sources: The Associated Press; BBC.
