BIDUR, Nepal: Rescue teams using heavy machinery dug through mud and debris in Nepalese towns devastated by a flash flood two days ago, as hopes of finding survivors faded and officials worked to reduce the risk of fresh flooding.The death toll in Nepal reached 469 on Friday (Aug 28), with almost 1,000 more missing there and in neighbouring Tibet, near where a glacier collapse on Wednesday morning sent a huge torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris cascading through Himalayan mountain river systems.The flood ripped through villages and valleys, destroying power stations, roads and bridges along a route that links Kathmandu with Lhasa in Tibet and is popular with trekkers and pilgrims. Of those missing, at least 540 are foreigners.Authorities in Nepal used helicopters to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands cut off in towns and valleys, while emergency services - some using sniffer dogs - recovered dozens of bodies swept down into the plains.
A member of the security forces and his sniffer dog search for survivors following flash floods at Trishuli in Nepal's Nuwakot district on Aug 27, 2026. (Photo: AFP/Prakash MATHEMA)
Dibga Tamang was among the last people rescued from the hard-hit town of Rasuwa on Thursday, airlifted along with three others to an army camp in Nuwakot."All of our people have gone. They are dead," Tamang said. "I have no one left waiting for me. Everything and everyone is gone. The end."The sheer amount of water and debris stirred up now risks triggering a further disaster.Nepal's disaster management authority warned that a lake formed by debris blocking the Bhotekoshi River at the flood site was rising and at risk of bursting, while on the other side of the border China said that some 3 million cubic metres of water - the equivalent of about 1,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools - was expected to flow into an already dammed lake over the next three days.There is a high risk the lake could breach, with peak flow expected around Sep 1, Chinese state media said, citing the water resources ministry."The volume of water is continuing to increase, and so is the risk," Zhu Jinfeng, a researcher at the ministry's hydrology department, told state broadcaster CCTV.Many of the missing are foreign tourists, including trekkers in the Himalayan nation, as well as scores of Hindu pilgrims to Tibet's sacred snow-capped Mount Kailash.The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the disaster was caused by a glacial collapse that triggered a vast flow of icy debris.Climate change is causing glaciers to melt worldwide, increasing the risks of glacial lake floods and glacial collapses."It is a giant graveyard," Omkar Joshi, a 35-year-old Nepali customs agent rescued from a hilltop in the border town of Timure, told AFP. "All that is left are sand and pebbles, soaked red by human blood."On Friday, Nepali police said the death toll had reached 469.Another 910 people, including 517 foreign tourists, were out of contact in the country. Beijing said 100 Chinese citizens - not accounted for in that tally - are also missing in Nepal.Indians make up the largest number of missing foreigners, while the United States said 90 of its citizens were out of contact.In China, state media said the "mudslide disaster" at the Gyirong Port in Tibet killed three people, while 558 people, including 260 foreigners, are missing.Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited the area on Thursday, state media said, to oversee relief work.China's Tibet Autonomous Region is largely inaccessible to foreign journalists."INLAND TSUNAMI"Prime Minister Balendra Shah, who urged the nation to "stand together" hours after the disaster, toured some of the hardest-hit areas on Thursday.Shah told local authorities to "provide immediate relief to displaced families" and to open blocked roads, his office said in a statement.Other foreigners out of contact include citizens from Australia, Britain, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa and South Korea, Nepal's tourism board said.The sudden rush of mud and debris was "like an inland tsunami", travelling nearly 170km south into Nepal, said environmental historian Ruth Gamble, of Australia's La Trobe University.Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India, said he would "pray for all those who have lost their lives".Chinese government officials in Tibet mobilised nearly 800 emergency workers, as well as sniffer dogs and speed boats to help the rescue efforts, the official Xinhua news agency said.Promises of aid and assistance began to trickle in soon after reports of the scale of the disaster.GLACIAL COLLAPSEThe USGS said a glacial collapse caused seismic activity and had "catastrophic" downstream impacts in Nepal and Tibet."This event was initially reported as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake," it said, but the seismic recordings were analysed and it was found instead to be a "glacial collapse and debris flow".Fears of more potential floods remain, with water trapped by the immense piles of debris blocking the valley."With a blockage still lodged upstream on the Nepal-China border river, authorities warn a second flood may occur," said Qianggong Zhang, head of climate and environmental risks at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.Kathmandu's Flood Forecasting Division issued a "special notice" on Thursday, warning of a growing lake behind debris left by the landslide and urging extreme caution.Scores of Hindu devotees from across the world are among the hundreds missing on the border, Indian spiritual leader Sadhguru said on Thursday.They were returning from a holy pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, on the Chinese side of the frontier, when they were caught in the floods at an immigration post."The entire group was there in the building," Sadhguru said in a video message to his millions of followers, weeping as he spoke from Tibet, with the anguished wails of other pilgrims heard in the background."This is a terrible and extraordinary event."
