The number of people missing in Nepal and China surpassed 2,400 on Friday, underscoring the scale of the disaster days after a tsunami-like wall of water and debris swept away villages and killed hundreds.
Rescuers were battling through mud even as the threat of new floods loomed, with emergency teams recovering 586 bodies so far and some of the dead swept downstream as far away as India.
The new figures came as Nepal's disaster authority added 933 hydropower workers to a missing persons list already including trekkers and pilgrims to Tibet's sacred Mount Kailash.
Relatives have crowded hospitals in Nepal's capital in a painful hunt for their loved ones, with posters on the walls bearing photos and names of the missing.
"Today is the third day and we don't know anything. Hopefully he is in a safe place," Samjhana Thing, 27, told the AFP news agency referring to her brother. "We lost everything. He is our everything."
