Nepal Issues Fresh Flood Warning Amid Thousands Missing
Authorities in Nepal have sounded a new alarm as rivers swollen by relentless rains threaten further devastation, while the combined death toll from last week’s catastrophic floods across the Nepal-Tibet border climbed to 750 and more than 3,000 people remain unaccounted for.
Officials recorded 734 fatalities on the Nepalese side and 16 in the Tibetan region of China, where the victims included citizens from Nepal and more than a dozen other nations. A possible glacier collapse high in the Himalayas is widely suspected of unleashing the sudden surge of water that tore through valleys on Wednesday, leaving communities shattered and infrastructure in ruins.
Residents living near the Bhotekoshi River received urgent mobile alerts on Sunday advising them to seek higher ground as water levels climbed once more. On the Tibetan side, monitoring drones detected a newly forming barrier lake behind landslide debris near the Gyirong border crossing, prompting the rapid relocation of rescue teams to avoid the risk of a sudden breach. These developments have intensified an already gruelling search-and-rescue operation that has stretched emergency crews to their limits four days after the initial disaster struck.
Particular urgency surrounds the fate of more than 100 hydropower workers believed still alive inside tunnels choked with flood debris along the Trishuli River, where over 900 labourers vanished when the waters hit. Army teams drilled through mud-packed tunnels overnight, pumping oxygen and lowering cameras in the hope of locating survivors, even as continuous rainfall and treacherous terrain slowed progress. Nepal’s prime minister’s office noted that the teams faced continuous rainfall and difficult conditions yet continued making tireless efforts to search for and rescue those who may be trapped.
Specialised units from India and China have reinforced local efforts alongside Nepal’s elite mountain rescue squad, better known for high-altitude operations on peaks such as Everest. The government has appealed for additional expertise in tunnel extraction, DNA analysis and victim identification, while the United States announced 3.6 million dollars in emergency humanitarian aid, including food support for up to 10,000 affected households. The Red Cross estimates that more than 90,000 people have been directly impacted by the flooding, many of them now facing the dual ordeal of loss and ongoing danger.
As families wait for news of missing relatives and communities confront the long recovery ahead, the fresh warnings underscore the fragile balance of life in the Himalayas, where shifting glaciers and intensifying weather patterns continue to test resilience and international solidarity in equal measure.
