The world wakes up this Thursday with its eyes on Nepal after a violent flood recorded on Wednesday morning left at least 162 dead in this Himalayan country, nestled between India and China, and at least three more fatalities in Tibet. The Spanish Government has confirmed that four of its nationals are missing.
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The main provisional lists of people with whom contact has not been established gather more than 1,300 names on both sides of the border, including 800 foreigners, as well as members of security forces, customs officials, and workers from several hydroelectric projects. While rescue teams try to make their way through destroyed roads and international experts try to clarify exactly what happened, satellite images are already allowing the possible origin of the catastrophe to be reconstructed.
In Nepal alone, the number of unlocated people amounts to 826, mostly travelers: 570. The British news agency Reuters estimates almost 476 foreigners in that situation, from 29 countries. On the Chinese side, authorities raise the number of unlocated people to 558, including 260 foreigners. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has assured that Beijing and Kathmandu are “cooperating closely in search and rescue efforts.”
“The death toll will rise, because we have resumed the search and expect to recover more bodies,” Nepali police spokesman Abi Narayan Kafle told Reuters.
Other official Nepali counts indicate that contact has also not been established with 85 members of the country’s security forces, 15 customs employees, and 60 hydroelectric project workers.
The two main lists —the 826 incommunicado in Nepal and the 558 people accounted for in Tibet— total 1,384 entries, although authorities have not clarified whether there may be overlaps. Especially in the case of foreigners who were crossing the border. All counts are still being verified and may include people who are safe but incommunicado due to road, electricity, and telephone outages.
Nepali police reported at five in the morning this Thursday (3:45 hours less in peninsular Spain) that bodies had already appeared in eight districts, in some cases dragged tens of kilometers downstream. Operations have resumed with 15 helicopters (seven military and eight private) after 97 people were evacuated by air during the first day. The injured will initially be treated at medical posts set up in Dhunche and Bidur, while serious cases will be transferred to Kathmandu. Helicopters have also begun distributing tents, food, and other emergency supplies provided by India in the hardest-hit districts, according to the Nepali Army, which has deployed 2,000 personnel.
A gigantic landslide
Seismographs detected a strong signal in the Himalayas, the highest mountain range on the planet and home to Everest, at 8:37 AM local time on Wednesday (4:52 AM in peninsular Spain). Initially, the United States Geological Survey identified it as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake, but later reclassified it as the seismic trace of a gigantic landslide. Further analysis of nearby seismic stations, long-period waves, and satellite images led the agency to conclude that the signal corresponded “in reality to a glacial collapse and a debris flow,” which subsequently caused “catastrophic impacts downstream.” Seven minutes later, according to the timestamp of the recordings, a huge mass of water, mud, and rocks reached the Tibetan pass of Gyirong.
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Satellite images from Planet Labs analyzed by experts cited by Reuters place the origin of the catastrophe on the Nepali side of the border. A considerable part of a glacier front broke off at an altitude of about 5,200 meters and fell approximately 1,200 meters to the valley floor. The avalanche of ice and rock entered the Lhende River and sent a huge mass of water, mud, and sediments downstream, first sweeping away the Tibetan border pass of Gyirong and then descending through Nepal, where it destroyed numerous towns and infrastructures.
China’s state news agency Xinhua confirmed after 2 PM local time that a rescue team has managed to approach the core of the catastrophe on Tibetan soil. It has not been specified whether they have managed to enter the Gyirong pass, but it is the first official confirmation that the Chinese column has advanced to the vicinity of the central area since the roads were destroyed.
Recordings from security cameras on the Chinese side of the border reflect the magnitude of what happened. They show dozens of people running to safety seconds before a wall of water, mud, and rocks bursts into the border pass, overturning buses and other vehicles, engulfing a government building, and destroying bridges and warehouses. These scenes, along with the hundreds of missing people and the fact that rescue teams have not yet been able to access some of the hardest-hit areas, raise fears that the number of victims will increase considerably.
“It was a huge wave of mud coming directly towards us,” Keshav Prasad Baral, a 68-year-old survivor who is hospitalized, told Reuters. “As it approached, it got higher and higher. When I saw it enter our house, I tried to grab my wife’s hand and take her to the rooftop, but the mud carried her away.”
Last night, Xinhua agency acknowledged that, as night fell, rescuers had still not managed to enter the core of the devastated area in Gyirong. The current had completely destroyed the roadway, the river remained too swollen, and the rain increased the danger of new landslides and casualties among the emergency teams themselves. Police officers and firefighters advanced with heavy machinery to open a provisional route, while telecommunications technicians deployed satellite phones and tried to restore the signal.
Chinese authorities reported this Thursday the formation of a lake dammed by landslides in the direction of Gyirong port. They have not yet communicated its volume or stability and are preparing observation posts to assess the danger of a new flood. Nepal’s Flood Forecasting Division, however, maintains that there are currently no indications of another imminent major flood in Rasuwa or Nuwakot, although it remains vigilant and warns that rains may raise river levels.
China has preemptively evacuated 369 residents from four villages located within a 14-kilometer radius of the border pass. A plane with 111 members of Chinese rescue teams landed at 8:26 AM at Dingri Tibetan airport with search, communications, and trapped person extrication equipment. Two military helicopters took off shortly before from Lhasa to reconnoiter the terrain and design aerial rescue routes. A Wing Loong drone equipped with cellular base stations and satellite communications also flies over the area, although it has not yet been confirmed that heavy equipment has reached the core of the border pass.
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