Rescuers retrieve flood survivors caked in mud as death toll in Nepal-China border disaster climbs
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Rescuers pulled out survivors caked in dark brown mud and helicopters lifted stranded people to safety, as Nepal and China raced to respond to catastrophic flash floods that killed nearly 600 people and left almost 2,500 missing.
The rescue efforts included a team that rappelled into a severely damaged checkpoint area on the Chinese side of the border between the two countries. Rescuers were on high alert for more flooding from a new lake that formed high up in the Himalayan mountains after the initial floods Wednesday. Experts warned that the lake, created after a glacier collapse that triggered the floods, was starting to overflow.
Nepal's army was deployed to help rescue more than 100 people believed trapped inside a tunnel at a hydropower plant located in the country's worst-hit district. Like elsewhere in the disaster zone, their work was complicated by thick layers of mud that covered the site.
The rappelling rescue team descended into the once-bustling border-crossing area from wooded mountain slopes, the state broadcaster China Central Television said.
“As far as I can see, it’s nothing but debris,” rescue official Zou Mingqi told state media. The area where travelers went through border control to enter or leave China has been flattened to a muddy area, according to satellite images.
The floods have killed 579 in Nepal, the country's disaster-management authority said Friday. Nepali police later put the number of deaths at 553. There was little information on survivors on the Chinese side, where the death toll rose to seven Friday as state media showed evacuations of villages and leaders’ efforts to direct the relief response.
More than 3,700 people have been rescued in Nepal so far. Meanwhile, the number of people who were unaccounted for in the country nearly doubled to 1,924 as more local residents were added to the tally. China's state media said 554 people were missing on the Chinese side. Hundreds of the missing are foreigners in the area to work, trek or make a pilgrimage to a sacred peak.
In other developments, Nepal on Friday reversed an earlier decision and said it would allow foreign teams and experts to help with rescue efforts, apparently under pressure from other countries, especially those whose citizens are unaccounted for, a leading English-language newspaper, The Kathmandu Post, reported.
Nepali police issued a fresh alert Friday after receiving information that a dam on the Tibet side had burst. Security personnel and rescue and relief workers were told to stay on high alert and move to a safe location if necessary.
It was unclear if the dam bursting was related to flooding concerns over the lake that formed after the initial flash floods. Chinese broadcaster CCTV said the newly formed lake, located more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Gyirong Port, the hard-hit border crossing with Nepal, sits at an elevation of 2,950 meters (9,680 feet).
Nepali and Chinese authorities earlier warned of more flooding from the lake, which was already overflowing. Rescue workers heading to the disaster zone were ordered to stop temporarily Friday due to concern the lake would release more water and debris, and people in potentially affected areas were urged to move to safer ground.
Monitoring data from the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources later showed that the lake had dwindled in size. The water level dropped by 10 meters (32 feet) from the high point on Thursday morning, the state broadcaster said.
Some 680 rescuers eventually reached the Gyirong area by foot and via rafts. Some were dropped down from drones flown to the area, CCTV footage showed. “Anyone, anyone?” rescuers yelled, according to footage by the broadcaster.
It was not immediately known how many people were at the border checkpoint building when the floods hit.
In Nepal's Rasuwa district, Nepali army rescuers struggled to help more than 100 people believed to be trapped by thick mud in a tunnel that's part of the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project. The army said it had rescued 350 people from the tunnel so far.
Video from the scene showed rescuers helping a man covered in mud out of the tunnel by pulling and pushing.
“It is complicated to find the entry and exit points of the tunnel because everything has been covered by mud,” Army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet said.
Nepal’s disaster-management authority said 3,253 people had been airlifted by helicopter from the disaster area.
The search-and-rescue efforts have been supported by an outpouring of financial support from neighboring countries, including small, poorer countries like Sri Lanka, said Kanni Wignaraja, the United Nations development agency’s regional director for Asia and the Pacific.
“Sri Lanka has its own huge fiscal problems, but it has just sent $1 million immediately to the Nepal government,” Wignaraja said.
Scientists who studied satellite images said bedrock underneath a glacier high in the Himalayan region had collapsed, taking part of the glacier with it. The rockfall was so extreme that it registered as magnitude 5.2. The rocks and melted water then swelled the rivers in the valleys below, causing a torrent of water that swept buildings, bridges and earth downstream in Tibet and Nepal.
Customs officer Karbir Gaire was among some of the survivors in Timure, the closest Nepalese village to the border with China, where some 1,500 people had lived.
Gaire reached his office around 8 a.m. Wednesday and was working on his computer when he first felt the ground shake.
“Right after the shake, I noticed a black storm coming towards us,” he recalled from Kathmandu, where he is back with family. “We all immediately started running out, and within a few seconds, we were climbing uphill on the opposite side of our office building. I think those 10 or so seconds saved some of us.”
Fifteen of Gaire's colleagues are missing. “It was like a Hollywood movie scene. I don’t call it a flood. It was a tsunami.”
Nepal’s tourism board has said that among the missing are more than 500 foreigners.
While the Nepal government shared a public list of people they rescued, there was little information about victims on the Chinese side of the border.
Chinese government officials stuck to their tight media controls. Information about major disasters is typically released with a delay and without personal stories of victims. State media has focused on stories of rescuers working to reach the disaster site or reporting on instructions from top leaders.
About 90 Americans were unaccounted for.
Some of the missing may have been on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists and others.
Indian spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev, also known as Sadhguru, said in a post on X that 77 people returning from Mount Kailash with groups organized by his Isha Foundation were at the immigration center in Gyirong when the flooding struck.
Vishnuram Ramaswamy, who works at a private company in the southern Indian city of Puducherry, said that he spoke to his mother and two sisters who were on that pilgrimage Wednesday morning. It was a highly anticipated trip, something his mother had always wanted to do, he said.
“This was the last we spoke to them," he said. "They have been unreachable since.”
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Associated Press journalists Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Sibi Arasu in Bengaluru, India; Huizhong Wu in Bangkok; Upendra Mansingh in Nuwakot district, Nepal; Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India; Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia; Farnoush Amiri in New York; Matthew Lee and Didi Tang in Washington; and Hannah Schoenbaum in Utah contributed to this report.
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