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Floods trap workers
Rescue teams in Nepal and Tibet have been racing to reach hundreds of people feared trapped in hydropower project tunnels after flash floods triggered by a glacier collapse, with Reuters saying the disaster killed more than 900 people and left nearly 5,000 missing.
“killing more than 900 people, with nearly 5,000 still missing”
Reuters reported that Nepali officials said the focus was reaching 933 workers believed to be trapped at 11 hydropower projects, including many working in about half a dozen tunnels in the two hard-hit districts of Rasuwa and Nuwakot.
On the Nepal-China border, AP said the combined deaths in Nepal and China surpassed 950, with more than 4,400 people missing, and that a private-sector association said at least 900 workers were unaccounted for at 12 hydropower projects damaged by the flash floods.
AP added that about 500 of those workers were believed to be trapped in tunnels, while rescue efforts included the recovery of four bodies from three mud-filled tunnels, Nepal’s army said.
BBC quoted Nepalese hydropower workers describing the moment water from the Trishuli River crashed into their tunnel, with Pemba Dundu Tamang saying, "The water was chasing behind me and I was running ahead of it."
Tunnel rescues and voices
As rescue operations intensified, Reuters said Nepali army search-and-rescue teams were using controlled blasts, excavators and searchlights to clear water and mud and reach trapped people.
Reuters also quoted Nepali army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet saying, "Our main focus is on opening the tunnels," as teams continued searching sections still buried in mud.
CBC quoted Australian tunnel rescues expert Arnold Dix saying, "If there's someone alive, or there's people alive out there, we're doing our best to find them," describing the work as a race for time.
CBC reported that Dix said "virtually anyone near the surface or near the entrances to those tunnels have lost their lives," while Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz in Austria based in Dhaka, said the tunnels were big enough to drive trucks through and that rescuers were trying to rescue people with oxygen.
In Nepal, BBC reported that Nepal Army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told AFP that soldiers were deployed "to collect bodies and prevent the spread of disease," as engineers pumped air into the tunnels and families searched for missing loved ones.
Numbers, risks, and next steps
The death toll and missing figures continued to be updated across Nepal and China, with Reuters saying Nepal’s authorities confirmed 903 people dead and 4,247 missing, including the 933 at hydropower projects.
“903 people were confirmed dead, with 4,247 missing”
Reuters reported that on the Chinese side, authorities said 16 people were killed in Gyirong County and 546 were missing, and it added that the Nepali foreign ministry said about 590 foreign nationals from 39 countries were still missing.
EL PAÍS said Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority confirmed at least 903 deaths and 4,247 remain missing, and it reported that 933 workers from hydroelectric plants and 102 soldiers, police officers, and customs officials were included among the missing.
EL PAÍS also described the slow progress in Tibet’s Gyirong gorge, where mud reaches one meter in depth in some areas, and it said Chinese experts identified more than 60 geologically unstable points, with eight provisionally classified as high danger.
Reuters warned that rescue operations were suspended several times because of bad weather and concerns that a lake formed across the Nepal-China border could trigger fresh flooding after it began overflowing into Nepal’s rivers, while CCTV said glaciers around an impact crater on the Nepalese side remained at risk of collapse.