Devastating floods near Nepal’s border with China have killed at least 939 people, while the number of people missing has fallen to 3,925, the country’s disaster authority said on Monday as rescue operations entered their sixth day.
Chinese state media earlier reported 16 deaths and 546 people missing in Tibet, taking the overall disaster toll across the region to at least 955 dead and 4,471 missing.
Nepal’s list of missing people includes 592 foreigners. The number of workers missing from hydropower projects, which were among the worst-hit by the torrent, fell to 639 on Monday from an earlier estimate of 933.
Nepal’s disaster agency said 3,333 Nepali citizens remained unaccounted for. Nuwakot district reported 1,158 missing people, while another 865 were unaccounted for in neighbouring Rasuwa district.
Those missing also include 45 Nepali Army personnel, 38 police officers and 18 customs and immigration officials.
In neighbouring India, authorities in Uttar Pradesh said they had recovered 17 bodies from rivers flowing from Nepal, believed to be victims of the floods. Efforts were underway to identify the bodies, which have not been included in the official death toll.
PM Balendra Shah calls for climate action
Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah said the deadly Himalayan floods were “not an ordinary” disaster and linked the tragedy to the growing risks posed by climate change, calling for greater international action.
The massive surge of freezing water, ice and debris was triggered by a glacial collapse near the China-Nepal border. The disaster has killed at least 939 people and left nearly 4,500 missing, while authorities have warned that reconstruction costs could run into billions of dollars.
“The flood in the Bhote Koshi River in Rasuwa was not an ordinary flood,” Shah said in a social media post late Monday.
“It was one of the region’s major disasters, triggered by an avalanche of snow and ice in the Himalayan region,” he said.
Although the exact cause of the collapse remains unclear, scientists have warned that climate change is accelerating glacier melt around the world and increasing the risk of such disasters. The Himalayas are warming rapidly as global temperatures rise.
“This incident indicates that the risks we face in the Himalayan region are increasing alongside climate change,” Shah said, adding that the region must remain vigilant.
Nepal, a largely rural country of around 30 million people, has contributed relatively little to the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming but remains highly vulnerable to its devastating consequences.
With inputs from AFP
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