Officials said on Thursday, Aug. 27, that at least 332 people had died in the disaster, while search and rescue efforts remain ongoing
Credit: Prabin RANABHAT / AFP via Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Over 300 people are dead and more than 900 are missing after a sudden flash flood in Nepal
- The huge flood occurred on the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 26, near Nepal’s border with China’s Tibet region
- The Nepal Tourism Board said the following day that hundreds of foreign nationals are among those missing, including 65 Americans
More than 300 people have died, with over 900 missing — including dozens of U.S. nationals — after a flash flood and mudslide hit Nepal.
Latest figures show 332 people across eight of the country’s districts have now been confirmed dead after the floods struck numerous settlements along the Trishuli River, near the country’s border with China’s Tibet region, on the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 26.
A Nepali Police spokesperson confirmed the revised death toll to local outlet The Kathmandu Post on the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 27. The updated figure comes after police first reported 289 deaths earlier in the day. Meanwhile, more than 900 people, many of them foreign citizens, remain missing, per the BBC.
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According to China Central Television, the country’s state broadcaster, at least three people in Tibet have been confirmed dead with at least 558 missing, though it’s not clear whether those figures overlap with Nepal’s.
Search and rescue operations continue across both countries, according to The Post and China Central Television, with families in Nepal being evacuated from areas at risk of more flooding.
Experts are working to ascertain what triggered the floods. At first, an earthquake was suspected, but it’s now thought a glacier may have collapsed, triggering a flow of water and debris, per the BBC.
More floods are feared, posing risks to life, damaging infrastructure and hampering search and rescue efforts.
According to The Post, a large barrier lake has also formed where two rivers meet in Nepal, and Chinese authorities have warned that it could further increase the risk.
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The initial flood occurred near the China-Nepal border crossing at Gyirong Port, which sees a lot of daily traffic from trade and tourism, particularly pilgrimage tours to Mount Kailash, a holy site in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism, across the border in Tibet.
Dozens of American tourists are among those missing, the Nepal Tourism Board said on X on Thursday. The announcement stated that 65 U.S. nationals, along with 25 from Canada, 33 from the U.K., 35 from Australia, 178 from India, and hundreds more from across the world are unaccounted for.
In a later X announcement, the board said two U.S. nationals, Pattabiraman Venkatesan, 55, and Anjana Rana, 52, had been rescued. It’s unclear whether they had been included in the original missing figures.
Sisters Ashna and Shreya Ahuja told the BBC that their parents, Deepak and Madhu Ahuja, traveled from their home in Texas to Mount Kailash as part of Deepak’s 60th birthday, and were crossing from Tibet into Nepal when the floods hit.
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They said they had contacted the U.S. State Department and U.S. embassies in India, Nepal and China, but have received no information regarding their parents.
“It’s only been one day, but it has felt like much longer,” they told the broadcaster. “We just love them a lot and want them to come home.”
PEOPLE reached out to the Nepali Police for further updates but did not immediately hear back.
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