flood in nepal
TRISHULI, Nepal:(Daily Jurat) Nepal police said on Thursday that at least 270 bodies had been recovered after catastrophic flash floods swept through Himalayan border regions of Nepal and China’s Tibet.Nearly 1,500 people, including more than 700 foreigners, are reported missing across Nepal and China’s Tibet, with rescuers continuing to search for survivors and bodies.
At least 288 Indian nationals are missing in Nepal and another 200 remain stranded in China after the torrential floods swept through the Himalayan border areas, India’s foreign ministry said on Thursday.The 288 missing Indians include tourists and Indian nationals working in Nepal, the ministry said.
The death toll is expected to rise further as rescuers scour flood-ravaged towns and valleys cut off by Wednesday’s disaster, triggered when a wall of mud and rock collapsed into a Himalayan river.Rescuers in Nepal are using helicopters to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands stranded after the floods swept through a route linking Kathmandu with Lhasa in Tibet that is popular with trekkers and pilgrims.
Almost 500 foreigners were among 826 people reported missing in Nepal, police and tourism officials said.Among the missing tourists from more than two dozen countries, 177 were from India, 63 from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 25 from Canada.
Malaysia’s foreign ministry said 55 nationals were uncontactable, though there was no official confirmation of casualties.
The tally of missing in Tibet’s Gyirong county was 558, including 260 foreign nationals, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported. China said the death toll remained at three.
Verified videos showed crushing masses of water and debris sweeping away dozens of people at a border crossing in Gyirong, while homes, roads and power projects were washed away downstream in Nepal.”It was a huge gush of mud coming straight towards us,” said Keshav Prasad Baral, a 68-year-old survivor being treated in a Nepali hospital.
“As it got closer, it kept rising higher and higher. When I saw it enter our home, I tried to grab my wife’s hand and take her to the terrace. But she was swept away by the mud.”
A helicopter ferried him to safety four hours later.
“My wife is still somewhere beneath the mud,” he added. “She’s gone.”
Another survivor said he saved himself by clinging to a mango tree as he watched the house where he had been working disappear.
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