Three Italian nationals are still missing following yesterday’s devastating flood in Nepal: confirmation of this, following this morning’s announcement by the Nepalese authorities, has come from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ministry has been informed that, of the ten or so Italians still unaccounted for as of this morning, three specific cases remain. The first is Marco Ratto, a goldsmith from Rapallo who was travelling in the country and was on his way out of Nepal towards Tibet. The Chinese travel agency that was due to take charge of the group has confirmed that it lost contact with them at the border crossing. The information, reported by ANSA, has also been confirmed by the Nepalese agency directly to the family.Then there is an Italian-Swiss couple travelling from Tibet to Nepal. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs explains that there are no reports from the agency and there is still no confirmation that they have crossed the border. The Foreign Ministry states that the figures released by the Nepalese side are based on information shared by tour operators and may be inaccurate, failing to take into account those who have not crossed the border. So far, around 130 Italian nationals reported to have been in the area prior to the disaster have been contacted.For this reason, writes Minister Antonio Tajani, "staff have been dispatched to Kathmandu from the embassy in New Delhi to strengthen our presence on the ground and provide assistance to our compatriots". The announcement was made in a social media post, in which the Deputy Prime Minister expressed solidarity with those affected: “I convey the government’s condolences to the families of the victims of the floods that have struck Nepal and the Tibetan region. Our thoughts are with the authorities and the affected populations. I am monitoring the situation of our compatriots in the affected areas with the utmost attention.”Meanwhile, the death toll from the environmental disaster has risen to 362. These figures come from the Nepalese police, combined with those from Beijing (for the Tibetan side): 359 dead in Nepal, three in Tibet. However, the number is set to rise; it is not yet confirmed and the figures are currently unclear. There is also confusion regarding the number of people unaccounted for. At present, there are around 540 foreigners and 127 Nepalese citizens missing in Nepal. Meanwhile, the number of people missing in Gyirong County, Tibet, has risen to 558, of whom 260 are foreign nationals. The figures are reported separately and cannot be added together. There are currently 108 European citizens involved and missing.Rescue operations are still under way in the area, made extremely difficult by the weather conditions: the authorities are recovering bodies, including those of children, from beneath the mud and rubble. It was the collapse of a glacier that triggered the devastating flash flood which struck the area between Tibet and Nepal yesterday. This has been confirmed by the USGS, the United States Geological Survey, which states that the 5.2-magnitude earthquake “was caused by a glacier collapse and a debris flow that had catastrophic consequences downstream”.According to the information gathered so far, and in line with the views of various experts, including the aforementioned USGS, the flood is believed to have been caused by the collapse of a large section of a glacier in the upper Himalayan valley on the border with Tibet. The area most severely affected is the Nepalese district of Rasuwa, in Bagmati Province, where material that had fallen into the upper valley of the Lhende Khola River – a tributary of the Bhote Koshi – is believed to have temporarily blocked the watercourse. The subsequent collapse of the blockage released a mass of water, mud, debris and ice that rushed downstream, reaching the Bhote Koshi and the Trishuli and devastating villages and infrastructure. The water level of the Trishuli rose by nine metres in about half an hour. Satellite images analysed by experts place the collapse at around 5,200 metres, with a descent of approximately 1,200 metres in a very short space of time.