The number of missing soared past 2,400 on Friday as emergency teams said they had recovered 586 bodies -- with some of the dead swept downstream as far away as India.In an area home to vast energy infrastructure projects, Nepal's disaster authority added 933 hydropower workers to a missing persons list already including trekkers and pilgrims to Tibet's sacred Mount Kailash.Those that made it out say they have lost everything and now face an agonising wait to discover the fate of missing loved ones, and the prospect of rebuilding their lives from nothing."All the settlements near the river were swept away. There is nothing left," survivor Buddhi Ram Dangol told AFP.Samjhana Thing said she had been waiting three days for news of her missing brother."We don't know anything. Hopefully he is in a safe place," she said.'Enormous' trauma
A school student holds a LED candle as he pays homage to people who died in Nepal's flash flood, in Chennai on August 28, 2026. © R. Satish BABU / AFP
The trauma of Wednesday's catastrophe has been "enormous", and as many as 93,000 people may have been affected, the Red Cross said, with the death toll expected to rise.Emergency teams had been racing to retrieve survivors from affected zones, where the widespread devastation meant food and water supplies were running out.Compounding the search for the missing have been fears of further flooding in affected areas.The deluge of ice and mud caused huge lakes to form, and one of these formations has become a direct threat to emergency workers scouring the region for survivors.Nepali police urged all rescuers to "immediately move to a safe location", saying they had received information that "a water dam has burst again on the Tibetan side". In Tibet, where Chinese authorities are the only source of information, Beijing suspended its rescue operation at the hardest-hit area of Gyirong over the risk of renewed flooding, before saying the threat had eased.State news agency Xinhua reported early Saturday morning that two villagers had been rescued in the area.'All swept away'
