By Gopal Sharma, Liz Lee, Sahana Bajracharya and Navesh Chitrakar
TRISHULI, Nepal/BEIJING, Aug 26 (Reuters) – A huge wall of mud and rock collapsed into a river on the Himalayan border of Nepal and China’s Tibet on Wednesday, triggering catastrophic flooding on the Nepali side that killed scores of people and left hundreds of tourists missing.
In a still-unfolding disaster, verified videos showed dozens of people swept away at the border, with authorities on both sides fearing far higher casualties and massive destruction.
Houses, roads and power projects were swept away in Nepal, while officials in Tibet said they feared “major casualties”, with some people missing in the county of Gyirong after a mudslide hit a border land crossing.
“It was a huge gush of mud coming straight towards us. As it got closer, it kept rising higher and higher. When I saw it enter our home, I tried to grab my wife’s hand and take her to the terrace. But she was swept away by the mud,” said Keshav Prasad Baral, a 68-year-old survivor, who was being treated at a small hospital.
“Four or five hours later, a helicopter came to rescue me. My wife is still somewhere beneath the mud. She’s gone.”
Another survivor described being saved by clinging to a mango tree as he watched the house where he had been working disappear.
COLLAPSE MAY HAVE BEEN TRIGGERED BY QUAKE
Initial reports from Nepali officials suggested an earthquake in the area could have caused the lower part of a glacier to collapse and trigger the floods.
Some 95 bodies have been recovered and are yet to be identified, the office of Nepal’s prime minister said, adding that 484 tourists were missing, of whom 391 were foreigners and 93 Nepalis.
The missing foreign travellers included more than 100 Indians, three U.S. citizens and 12 British nationals, Nepal’s tourism ministry said. How many local people were also missing was not clear.
The region lies on a popular route to Kailash Manasarovar in Tibet, a site visited annually by hundreds of Hindu pilgrims from India and elsewhere, particularly at this time of year.
China’s state broadcaster said three people were killed and 265 others remain missing in Gyirong, the first casualty figures provided for the Chinese side of the border. It said the toll was still being verified and rescue efforts were ongoing.
South Korea separately said that eight of its nationals working on a hydropower plant were missing.
FIXED CAMERA FOOTAGE SHOWS PEOPLE FLEEING
Security footage captured on the Chinese side of the Nepal-Tibet border showed many people fleeing before a torrent of rock, mud and water destroyed buildings, vehicles and took many lives.
The German Research Centre for Geosciences said there was a 4.4-magnitude quake approximately seven minutes before the time shown on the security footage time-stamp.
Locals from the affected areas of Nuwakot and Dhading were seen gathering outside a Nepali army training centre – the base for helicopter rescue operations – seeking information about missing family members.
Police were recording the names of the missing just outside the barracks gate, using mobile phone flashlights as their only source of light as the area remained without electricity due to damaged hydropower infrastructure.
In the affected areas, houses, trees and vehicles were seen submerged or buried in mudslides. Helicopters hovered overhead all day in the area bringing in survivors.
An initial study of Planet Labs satellite imagery indicated that a landslide of ice and rock triggered a debris-laden flood in the Lhende river, about 20 km (12 miles) northeast of the Nepal-China Rasuwagadhi border crossing, Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said on X.
Rescue helicopters could not land in Nepal’s affected areas of Syapru Besi and Timure in the mountainous district of Rasuwa, with a population of about 50,000, officials said, with the river flowing above its normal course.
Television images showed collapsed homes, floating cars and a metal bridge being washed away, while witnesses told Reuters the waters engulfed entire villages.
“There is devastation everywhere we look,” Tula Bahadur BK, a health worker in Rasuwa, told Reuters. “The settlements next to the river have been completely swept away. Five of my own relatives are missing.”
CHINA SAYS GYIRONG PORT AFFECTED
China’s official Xinhua news agency said the mudslide hit the Gyirong port, cutting roads, communications and power links in the Shigatse region near the border.
The Chinese military has dispatched drones to conduct damage assessments, a statement said, adding it was organising transport aircraft, helicopters and other equipment to be on standby for rescue operations.
A rescuer interviewed by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said they had been trying to establish contact with the Gyirong border port but “so far there haven’t been any results”. All roads leading to the border crossing had been “completely destroyed” after a preliminary inspection with a drone, the rescuer added.
With the deluge of muddy water sweeping down from an estimated nearly 2,000 metres (6,560 feet) above sea level, flood alerts were issued in the populous northern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which border Nepal and where several rivers flow down the mountains into the plains.
Authorities in Bihar said they had evacuated about 5,000 people from six districts and planned to evacuate a total of 10,000 to 12,000 people.
(Reporting by Gopal Sharma, Sahana Bajracharya, Aftab Ahmed, Liz Lee, Yukun Zhang, Xiuhao Chen, Shi Bu, Sakshi Dayal, Kanjyik Ghosh, and Jatindra Dash; Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar, YP Rajesh and Matthias Williams; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Alex Richardson)
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