Paramilitary police conduct search and rescue operations on a hillside 2 kilometres from Gyirong Port which was damaged after a mudslide two days earlier, in Gyirong County, in China’s western Tibet region on August 28, 2026.
Rescuers in Nepal and China were still battling on Saturday to locate thousands of people missing days after a deadly, tsunami-like wall of water and debris swept through the Himalayan region, engulfing villages.
The number of missing soared close to 3,000 on Saturday, latest figures from both countries showed, with 633 bodies recovered — and reports of some dead possibly 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 who 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.
