Nepal flash flood rescue efforts paused amid fears of further flooding

Kathmandu, Nepal — Authorities temporary stopped rescue efforts Friday due to fears that a newly formed, overflowing lake could trigger further flooding in areas devastated by a catastrophic flash flood along the Himalayan border between Nepal and China.

Rescuers had been working through mud and debris, looking for hundreds of people still missing as the disaster’s death toll rose.

Nepal police said Friday morning that the country’s death toll had risen to 469 from 390 a day earlier, as rescuers recover more bodies amid the debris. China hasn’t updated its report of just three deaths in Tibet. Together, the two countries have said more than 1,500 people are missing.

Nepali and Chinese authorities warned of further flooding because a lake that formed upstream behind immense piles of debris after Wednesday’s disaster was already overflowing. They urged people in potentially affected areas to move to safer ground.

China’s Ministry of Water Resources said Thursday that the lake held around 70 million cubic feet of water and was expected to receive another 106 million cubic feet over the next three days.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported Friday morning that the lake’s barrier was more than six miles from Gyirong Port, the border crossing with Nepal that was engulfed by mud and floodwater.

CCTV said the lake was at an elevation of 9,680 feet, some 3,280 feet above Gyirong Port.

The Nepal Army said a team was sent to the border point to inspect the Bhotekoshi River amid the potential of more floods.

Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said Friday that 3,253 people had been airlifted by helicopter from the country’s disaster area.

Flood survivors, including injured people, were taken to Kathmandu and other locations. Foreigners from multiple countries were among the missing, many of them trekkers and pilgrims.

Nepali Army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet told The Associated Press a team had been deployed Friday to the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project near the Nepal-China border following reports that people were trapped inside a tunnel.

“It is complicated to find the entry and exit points of the tunnel because everything has been covered by mud,” Basnet said. “Our first priority is rescuing the stranded people.”

Videos of the disaster showed floodwaters destroying buildings, bridges and vehicles as people ran in front of the stories-high torrent. In the aftermath, broken concrete lay upended in expanses of brown mud that also caked buildings and buried streets.

Customs officer Karbir Gaire is among some of the survivors in Timure, the closest Nepalese village to the border with China.

Gaire reached his office around 8 a.m. on Wednesday and was busy working on his computer when he first felt the ground shake.

“Right after the shake, I noticed a black storm coming towards us,” he recalled from Kathmandu, where he is back with family. “We all immediately started running out and within a few seconds, we were climbing uphill on the opposite side of our office building. I think those 10 or so seconds saved some of us.”

Gaire doesn’t remember exactly how many people were in the office when the disaster struck, but his 15 colleagues have gone missing. “It was like a Hollywood movie scene. I don’t call it a flood, it was a tsunami.”

He described Timure as a vibrant place filled with government offices, hotels, cafes, banks, primary schools, tea shops and residential buildings, where more than 1,500 people were living.

Rajan Tamang, a restaurant owner in New York City, said he learned from family in Kathmandu that his mother and sister were among those who died, while many other relatives and friends remained missing.

“My family was just waking up, and they didn’t even get any information, and suddenly this flood came. Some of them are missing, some of them lost their life and only a few is alive,” he told The Associated Press after a vigil in New York.

Vishnuram Ramaswamy works at a private company in the southern Indian city of Puducherry and said he last spoke to his mother and two sisters who were on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash on Wednesday morning at 9 o’clock.

“My mother said they were on their way towards the border area and said they’ll reach their hotel and call us,” he said. “This was the last we spoke to them. They have been unreachable since.”

Ramaswamy said he’s in constant contact with Nepal and Indian government officials as well as the travel agencies who arranged his family’s trip but has not received any updates about their whereabouts so far.

“This was the first time they had gone on this pilgrimage and it was something my mother always wanted to do,” he said.

Some of the missing may have been on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists and others.

Seventy-seven people from one pilgrimage group were caught in the floods at the immigration office at the border, according to a post on X from Indian spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev, also known as Sadhguru.

Nepal’s tourism board has said that among the missing are more than 500 foreigners.

President Trump said the flooding was terrible to see, describing how “strong, well-built buildings were wiped out like they were toothpicks.”

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said the U.S. spoke with Nepalese leaders and offered to provide “anything they want.”

Scientists who’ve studied satellite images said bedrock underneath a glacier high in the Himalayan region collapsed, taking part of the glacier with it. The rocks and melted water swelled the rivers in the valleys below, causing a torrent of water that swept buildings, bridges and earth downstream.