The death toll from last week’s flash floods across Nepal and southwestern China has passed 1,000, with 4,462 people still missing (Anadolu Agency; Dawn).
The numbers, broken down
Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority confirmed 84 more fatalities, taking the toll on the Nepali side to 987. Chinese authorities have confirmed 16 deaths. That gives a combined total of 1,003.
On the missing:
– Nepal: 3,916 unaccounted for, including 583 foreigners and 639 hydropower personnel – China: 546 unaccounted for, including 261 foreigners
A note on a figure readers may see elsewhere: Prime Minister Balendra Shah put the toll at 939 in a late-night social media post, and some outlets are still carrying that number. The 987 figure comes from the NDRRMA, is more recent, and is the one that breaks down by side of the border. We have used the official disaster authority’s count.
What caused it
A glacier on Mount Langtang Lirung fractured at an altitude of about 5,200 metres on 26 August, triggering an ice-rock avalanche that developed into a massive debris flow.
Rescue operations
Rescuers have now reached remote areas cut off since the disaster and electricity has been restored in places, nearly a week on (Express Tribune). About 600 people remain trapped in several devastated hydropower stations — a figure that overlaps with, rather than adds to, the 639 hydropower personnel listed as missing.
Prime Minister Shah has used the disaster to demand action on climate change. Glacier collapse at altitude is precisely the hazard Himalayan states have warned about as high-mountain ice destabilises, and Nepal’s hydropower build-out has placed workers and infrastructure directly in the path of such flows.
[Image: flood aftermath in Nepal, AFP, via Dawn.]
[Image: AFP via Dawn]
