Rescuers searched for survivors in the debris-strewn valleys and hillsides of Nepal yesterday while more than 1,000 people remained missing there and in neighbouring China.
This came after a wall of ice, mud and rock collapsed into a ?mountain river, triggering a catastrophic flash flood.
Authorities in Nepal yesterday used helicopters to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands cut off in towns and valleys in the wake of Wednesday’s disaster, which swept down a route thronged by trekkers pilgrims that links Kathmandu with Lhasa in Tibet.
Police said 359 had died, with dozens of bodies swept down into the plains from where they were being recovered.
Nepal’s disaster management authority warned of a potential new flood risk along the Bhotekoshi river after satellite images and preliminary analysis indicated that the river had been blocked and a lake had formed at the site of Wednesday’s flood.
The lake is rising and could burst, the authority said, urging residents and rescuers along the lower banks of the river to move to safe areas away from the river.
Nepal’s Home Minister Sudhan Gurung said the focus remained on finding survivors as rescue teams located 100 missing Indian visitors, mostly ?pilgrims, and 25 Chinese workers in the worst-hit region around Trishuli.
Nearly 550 foreigners were still unaccounted for while Nepali authorities were yet to determine the number of locals missing.
The Red Cross said that entire villages had ?been destroyed and impassable roads and bridges had left communities cut off. The full scale of the disaster remains unclear, it added.
‘It was a huge gush of mud coming straight towards us,’ said Keshav Prasad Baral, a 68-year-old survivor being treated in a Nepali hospital.
‘As it got closer, it kept rising higher and higher. When I saw it enter our home, I tried to grab my wife’s hand and take her to the terrace. But she was swept away by the mud.’
A helicopter ferried him ?to safety four hours later. ‘My wife is still somewhere beneath the mud,’ he added. ‘She’s gone.’
The tally of missing in Tibet’s Gyirong County was 558, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said yesterday, including 260 foreign nationals. China said the death toll stayed at three.
The missing foreigners in Nepal belonged to more ?than two dozen countries, including 288 from India, 63 from the United States, 51 from Malaysia, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 25 from Canada.
China is in close communication with Nepal on search and rescue efforts, with nearly 100 Chinese nationals in the affected area across the border in Nepal, the Chinese foreign ministry said.
China’s Premier Li Qiang, the country’s No. 2 official, arrived at the disaster-stricken site in Gyirong yesterday afternoon, state-run Xinhua news agency said.
The visit suggested Beijing was treating the disaster as a matter of the highest national priority.
The Gyirong border port has a key role in China’s Belt and Road network linking the country ?to South Asia, with logistics parks, yards, and parking lots built there in the past decade.
Verified videos showed crushing masses of water and debris sweeping away dozens of people at a border crossing in Gyirong, with homes, roads and power projects washed away in Nepal as the flows travelled ?downstream.
Chinese government geologist Guo Zhaocheng said the ice-avalanche debris flow that caused the mudslide travelled at about 50 metres (165 feet) per second, leaving people little time to react, and extended for more than 20 km (12 miles).
Early reports from Nepali officials suggested an earthquake in the area could ?have caused the lower part of a glacier to collapse and trigger the ?floods.
The U.S. Geological Survey said an earthquake with magnitude initially reported ?as 4.4 was in fact seismic energy generated by the collapse of glacial rock and ice, followed by debris flow.
Beijing officially identified the cause of the disaster, with the Xinhua news agency reporting: ‘Cause of the Gyirong mudslide in Tibet identified: A high-altitude glacier collapse in Nepal.’
Chinese authorities have also identified risks from a still-dammed lake in Gyirong, upstream from the mudslide and flood-stricken Tibet-Nepal border crossing that could complicate rescue efforts, particularly as rains are ?forecast, CCTV said.