Nepal floods kill 19, leave 384 tourists missing

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — At least 19 people have died and 384 tourists, including 291 foreigners and 93 Nepalese citizens, are missing after a sudden flood in a Nepalese area bordering Tibet, local authorities said on 26 August.

According to the Nepal Tourism Board, reports of missing people were submitted by tourism and transport companies. Authorities are continuing to verify the whereabouts of those reported missing and coordinate search-and-rescue operations.

Nepal police spokesman Abi Narayan Kafle said the bodies of 19 people had so far been recovered. Relevant agencies have been deployed for rescue and humanitarian operations, while many police personnel are also unreachable, he said.

Videos circulating on social media showed powerful flows of muddy water moving through mountain valleys in the area bordering China. Witness Suman Chalise told AFP he saw the torrent sweep away several trucks, houses and people.

The scale of the destruction remains unknown. Residents living near rivers have been urged to leave dangerous areas. The Nepalese army has deployed helicopters and disaster-response units to the affected areas.

The flooding also damaged Nepal's energy infrastructure. According to the country's Electricity Authority, facilities linked to about 430 MW of generating capacity, including hydropower plants and solar facilities, were damaged. Damage to generation, transmission and distribution systems caused power disruptions.

Sarthak Shrestha, a specialist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), suggested that no abnormal phenomena had been observed on the Chinese side of the border. He said a possible cause was a collapse of rocks and ice in Nepal that blocked the Lhende River and triggered a cascading flood.

Authorities closed several roads because of the disaster. China's state broadcaster CCTV reported that a landslide on the Nepalese side of the border caused numerous deaths and left people missing near the Gyirong border crossing in Tibet.

China's Xinhua news agency reported that President Xi Jinping ordered a large-scale rescue operation. He called for every effort to be made to find missing people, assist those affected and reduce the death toll.

Authorities in the Tibetan city of Shigatse also warned of the risk of further landslides and urged people to take into account the unsafe condition of roads.

Floods and landslides regularly occur in South Asia during the monsoon season, which runs annually from June to September. In July last year, 17 people went missing after a landslide near the Gyirong border crossing.