Search for 1,000 missing after deadly Nepal-Tibet floods

Rescue efforts intensified Thursday to locate over 1,000 individuals reported missing along the Nepal-Tibet border following catastrophic flash floods and landslides that claimed at least 165 lives and obliterated entire communities. An excavator was deployed to extricate a flood survivor amidst the wreckage left by the disaster in Devghat, Nuwakot district, Nepal, on August 26, 2026.

A harrowing video captured from the Chinese side of the border depicts a colossal mound of mud and debris obliterating a multi-story building, hurling vehicles aside as panicked residents scrambled to safety below. The surge was reported to have been caused by a glacial collapse, releasing a torrent of debris that engulfs an area along the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli rivers, according to the US Geological Survey.

Nepali authorities have recovered 162 bodies, while Chinese state media reported that the "mudslide disaster" in Gyirong Port, Tibet, resulted in three fatalities, with 558 people, including 260 foreigners, still unaccounted for. Raju Bhadel, a 56-year-old businessman in Nepal's Nuwakot district, recounted receiving a frantic call from his brother-in-law, who described their house being swept away, with three family members rescued but his brother still missing.

In Nuwakot, teacher Manok Mishra witnessed nine trucks and their passengers being swept away by the deluge. Rescuers braved the treacherous mud and sludge to search for survivors, as floodwaters reduced multi-story buildings to ruins, with some 468 tourists - 393 of them foreigners - still unaccounted for, according to Nepal's tourism ministry.

The foreigners among the missing included nationals from India, Australia, Britain, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States, as per Nepal's tourism board. The surge of mud and debris was likened by environmental historian Ruth Gamble of La Trobe University to an "inland tsunami," traveling nearly 170 kilometers down the Bhote Koshi valley into Central Nepal.

The popular tourist route from Kathmandu to Lhasa has seen entire villages and market areas reduced to rubble. Nepal's International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies dispatched emergency supplies, including blankets, first aid kits, stretchers, and body bags, while Tibetan officials mobilized nearly 800 emergency workers, 150 vehicles, sniffer dogs, and speed boats to aid the rescue operations.