The death toll from devastating floods near the border between Nepal and China has risen to nearly 800, with thousands missing following Wednesday’s disaster.
Rescue efforts are under way to locate more than 900 missing workers at hydropower projects in central Nepal. Authorities from Nepal and the Tibet region of China have put the total number of missing at just over 3,000, with some bodies washing up in neighbouring India.
A glacier collapse high in the Himalaya mountains in Nepal near the border with Tibet triggered Wednesday’s catastrophic flooding and landslides, which buried villages and towns along the Trishuli and Bhotekoshi river systems.
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According to Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, the death toll from the floods has risen to 781.
The Kathmandu Post reported that bodies are turning up far downstream and local morgues are running out of space to store others until they are identified.
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As of Sunday morning, 2,498 people remain missing in Nepal. They include 589 foreigners and 127 Nepali citizens travelling with them, 45 personnel from Nepal’s army, 27 from Nepal’s police and 13 from the armed police force.
Reporting from Nepal, Al Jazeera’s Samer Allawi said Nepal’s disaster management authorities have evacuated thousands of people, including foreign nationals, with the help of the army and police.
In China’s Tibet region, authorities said on Sunday that 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries are missing. They include 104 from Nepal, 49 from neighbouring India, as well as 33 Latvians, 18 Americans, 15 Britons, six from Canada, six from Australia, three each from Russia, Malaysia and Germany, 10 from the Netherlands, New Zealand, Estonia, France and Ireland and one each from Finland, Lithuania, Portugal, Ukraine, Spain, Hungary and Kazakhstan.
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Nepali journalist Adhikari accused world leaders of not prioritising the threats posed by the climate crisis. “This catastrophe is not Nepal’s fault. The country is paying the price for how world leaders have been dealing with climate change.”
“Nepal has had floods and disasters like earthquakes before, but I have never seen anything like what happened on Wednesday. Entire families have been swept away. People are devastated and have lost everything – their property, their security, their lifelines. They have no homes to return to in the flood-affected areas.”
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
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