At least 95 people have died and more than 600 are missing due to severe floods caused by the strong rise of the Bhotekoshi River in Rasuwa, a mountainous district in northern Nepal, near the border with Tibet, in China, authorities of the country reported this Wednesday.
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The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) has confirmed that the bodies recovered by search and rescue services are concentrated in seven districts, most of them in Chitwan, located further south. The situation has caused communication disruptions in many areas of the country and hinders rescue efforts.
Among the places that have suffered serious damage are markets and security posts in the area. In addition, an estimated 44 army personnel are missing in Timure, Rasuwa, near the Chinese border, as well as 28 police officers and 13 security agents.
To these, 60 workers from several hydroelectric plants located in the affected areas and Customs and Immigration workers must be added, who are currently still missing, according to the NDRRMA balance.
Currently, 57 injured people are being treated in hospitals across the country, 21 of them in Rasuwa and another 36 in other areas of the country, including Kathmandu, the capital, while some 250 people have been rescued to date.
Along the riverbed, dozens of settlements and infrastructures have been severely affected by the water, which has also caused extensive damage in China, on the other side of the border area, especially at the Gyirong pass.
Numerous personnel have had to be mobilized despite severe difficulties in accessing the affected areas. For this, they have the help of dozens of helicopters and security forces agents, all of them waiting to continue with search and rescue efforts, according to reports from ‘The Kathmandu Post’ newspaper.
Authorities have extended their condolences to the families and relatives of the deceased and injured after pointing to a landslide as the main cause of the disaster, having blocked the course of a river in Tibet before the Bhotekoshi overflow. Thus, they have urged residents of areas near the Trishuli River to stay away and move to safe areas.
Nepali Prime Minister, Balendra Shah, has said he has a “heavy heart” over the “enormous human and material loss caused by the sudden rise of the Bhotekoshi River in Rasuwa.” “This has shocked and saddened the entire country. This unexpected natural disaster has plunged many of our brothers, sisters, and children into deep sorrow,” he expressed in a statement.
Thus, he confirmed that “all their resources and mechanisms have been mobilized to carry out thousands of rescue operations,” while noting that several emergency Cabinet meetings have been convened, where “important decisions have been made to intensify rescue, search, and relief efforts.”
“We are living through very delicate moments. Our top priority is to save the lives of the injured, search for the missing, and provide security to those affected. (…) The Government will continue to work to rescue citizens and normalize their lives. The search for missing persons will be intensified, and complete information on the injured will be collected,” he declared.
For its part, the Nepal Tourism Board has indicated to local media that more than 400 tourists, all pilgrims heading to Mount Kailash in Tibet, are currently missing due to the impossibility of communication as the floods continue.
Authorities have thus placed the number of tourists with whom contact has been lost at 484, of whom at least 93 are Nepalese and 391 are foreigners. Initial reports indicate that 105 would be Indian, 17 Malaysian, 12 British, four South African, three American, one Australian, and one Dutch. The remaining nationalities have not been revealed.
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