+34
Hundreds believed trapped in hydropower tunnels
Rescue works continue at Trishuli Center in Nepal's Nuwakot district on Sunday, after catastrophic flooding on the Nepal - Tibet border. Photograph: Arun Sankar/AFP via Getty Imagesand Tibet from last week’s catastrophic floods hit 750 on Sunday with 3,044 missing, authorities said, while rescuers moved to higher ground as rain swelled river levels.
Rescue operations have been suspended several times since Friday because of bad weather and concerns that a lake formed across the Nepal-China border by a mudslide from Wednesday’s glacier collapse could trigger fresh flooding after it began overflowing into rivers in Nepal. The Red Cross estimates that more than 90,000 people are likely to have been affected by the disaster, which China has linked to the effects of China’s foreign minister Wang Yi told his Nepalese counterpart in a Saturday telephone call that the mudslide was their “most severe cross-border disaster” in recent years and that rescue operations were of unprecedented difficulty and complexity, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.
António Guterres: ‘Superpowers need to understand things have changed’ Nepal’s rescue effort is now focused on hundreds of people believed to be trapped in tunnels at hydropower plants after a torrent of ice, rock, mud and debris crashed down Himalayan rivers. Deaths in Nepal have risen to 734, with 2,498 missing and 7,514 rescued, the nation’s disaster authority said.
In China, 16 people had died in Gyirong County as of Saturday evening and 546 were missing, officials in Tibet told a press conference. Among the 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries missing on the Tibetan side were 104 from Nepal, 49 from neighbouring India, as well as 33 Latvians, 18 Americans and 15 Britons, they said in China’s first breakdown by nationality.
Beijing and Kathmandu are working together to identify missing citizens and foreign nationals, as well as strengthening co-operation in disaster prevention and mitigation, and climate-change response, CCTV said. Water levels in the Trishuli river rose on Sunday after fresh rain, prompting residents and rescue workers to seek higher ground, Nepalese police told Reuters.
Nepal says it does not need foreign help for general rescue, but foreign ministry spokesperson Lok Bahadur Chhetri said the country needed assistance in such areas as tunnel rescue, DNA testing, refrigerated storage for bodies and forensic identification of decomposed remains. The lake that had formed upstream and threatened rescue operations had largely drained by Saturday evening, CCTV said.
But drones detected a landslide late on Saturday 2.8km downstream of the lake, forming a new dam and a fresh pool of water, CCTV said. The authorities relocated rescue personnel near the Gyirong border crossing to safety, the broadcaster said. The flood was “caused by glacier instability under the long-term effects of global warming”, CCTV reported, saying it was a “new and prominent feature of cryosphere disasters” on the Tibetan plateau.
The mudslide from the Nepalese side took six to seven minutes to reach the Gyirong border crossing, CCTV said, citing the findings of Chinese scientists. Dramatic surveillance footage shared worldwide showed torrents of water and debris engulfing buildings while people tried to flee. China has mobilised more than 2,100 rescue workers and allocated at least 220 million yuan to support relief efforts.
It is also providing emergency cash aid, disaster relief supplies, satellite and hydrological data and tunnel rescue experts to Nepal, CCTV said. China used heavy-lift drones as helicopters began airdropping equipment and supplies to frontline rescuers near the border crossing. Soldiers have used life-detection equipment, drones and a navigation system to continue searching for those still missing.
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