More than 290 dead and almost 1,500 missing in the brutal flood in Nepal and Tibet

BarcelonaThe brutal floods on Wednesday at the border between Nepal and Tibet, which have buried entire villages, have left almost 1,500 people missing so far, most of them tourists, according to authorities. The provisional toll is 289 dead on the Nepalese side and three on the Tibetan side. Rescue teams are working against the clock to locate the missing in this mountainous Himalayan region, very popular with hikers and pilgrims, including hundreds of citizens from India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Rescue teams have not yet been able to access the most affected areas, and it is feared that the final toll will be much worse.

Videos recorded by pedestrians and security cameras show a huge mass of water and mud cascading over the border as people try to flee. Overturned trucks and houses, roads, power plants, and bridges swept away by the water. China has warned that there could be "many victims" in Tibet.

Almost 600 foreigners are among the 826 people missing in Nepal, according to police and tourism officials. Among them are 177 Indian citizens, 63 from North America, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain, 25 from Canada, and 4 from Spain, as confirmed by the Spanish government. Chinese state media have reported that at least 558 people are missing on the Tibetan side of the border, of whom at least 260 are foreigners. Nepal Police have reported that as of Wednesday evening, 165 bodies had been recovered. India has reported that it has 288 nationals missing, 200 of whom are on the Tibetan side.

Many of the victims were participating in a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar, a high-altitude site in Tibet revered by Hindus and Buddhists, among others.

Nepalese authorities have deployed several helicopters to search for survivors and have rescued at least 445 people alive—27 of them foreigners—in the last few hours. They have also dropped emergency supplies by air to thousands of people who have been isolated in villages and valleys due to flood damage.

While rescue teams are working at full speed, the worsening weather conditions and the difficulty of accessing the area portend complications in the rescue operations. The floods have left bridges and roads devastated, wide vehicles cannot travel on certain mountain roads, and many helicopters cannot land due to the steepness of the terrain. According to the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, "the area is characterized by high mountains and deep valleys with concentrated water catchment areas, so [continuous] rains would bring considerable uncertainty," the report said. Tibet's meteorological authorities predict that the rain will continue for the next three days along the route between Gyirong port and Dingri airport, which would complicate rescue efforts.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang has traveled to the area affected by the flood at the behest of Chinese President Xi Jinping himself, according to the state agency Xinhua. He will direct rescue and relief efforts and visit emergency personnel and the relocated population.

The causes

The initial information from Nepalese authorities suggested that an earthquake might have caused the lower part of a glacier to detach and trigger floods. However, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) later specified that there had been no earthquake, but rather that what appeared to be a seismic event of magnitude 4.4 was actually a tremor generated by the glacial rock and ice detachment itself. Similarly, the China National Seismological Network Center has confirmed that the seismic phenomenon was caused by the glacier collapsing onto the surface and not by a tectonic earthquake.

An initial study of satellite imagery from Planet Labs indicates that a landslide of ice and rock triggered a sediment-laden flood in the Lhende River, about 20 kilometers northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border crossing between Nepal and China, according to Nepal's national disaster management authority. Experts warn that the risk of such phenomena is exacerbated by the extreme topography of the Himalayas.