Rescue Efforts Underway Amid Rising Toll
Rescuers searched Himalayan valleys and hillsides on Aug 27 after flash floods and landslides hit the Nepal–Tibet border, with the death toll from a glacier collapse rising above 390, police said. More than 1,400 people were missing, including scores of foreigners and pilgrims. Hundreds of others have been displaced across the region.
Both Nepal and China confirmed that a glacier collapse on the morning of Aug 26 sent a huge torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris cascading through Himalayan mountain river systems. The flood swept through villages and key infrastructure along a route thronged by trekkers and pilgrims that links Kathmandu with Lhasa in Tibet.
In Nepal, authorities used helicopters to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands cut off in towns and valleys, while emergency services recovered dozens of bodies swept down into the plains. Ganesh Aryal, the administrator of Chitwan district, said authorities had recovered 103 bodies from the river system. Rescue teams located 100 missing Indian visitors and 25 Chinese workers, Nepal’s Home Minister Sudhan Gurung said.
Missing Foreigners and Pilgrims
At least 540 of the missing are foreigners. The US State Department said 90 Americans are unaccounted for in China and Nepal. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs said that 288 of its people, including some workers on a power project, were missing. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lin Jian said that nearly 100 Chinese citizens were missing in Nepal, and that according to preliminary information, 288 of those missing in Tibet were foreigners.
Five New Zealanders are among those reported missing and were heading to the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra pilgrimage in Tibet. They were near the border and have not been able to be contacted since. Seventy-seven people from one pilgrimage group were caught in the floods at the immigration office at the border, according to a post on X from Indian spiritual guru Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.
Vasanthi Muniandy, whose sister Vennila was part of a Hindu pilgrimage group from Malaysia, told Reuters: “I am totally broken. My sister is very important to me.”
Cause: Glacier Collapse, Not Earthquake
The US Geological Survey first reported a magnitude 4.4 earthquake early Wednesday, about 65 kilometres north of Kathmandu, near the border. The agency later updated its analysis to say the seismic event was instead a magnitude 5.2 glacier collapse that sent debris flowing downstream. Chinese government geologist Guo Zhaocheng said the ice-avalanche debris flow moved at about 50 metres a second and extended for more than 20 kilometres.
Climate experts at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development said an avalanche from a glacier likely caused Wednesday’s flash flood. In an emailed statement, they said water levels at one point on the Trishuli River rose by as much as 9 metres in half an hour. Simon Cox, chief scientist at the Mountains to Sea programme at Earth Sciences New Zealand, said: “Climate change is generating conditions that can destabilise high-mountain rock and ice.”
Risk of Further Flooding
Nepal’s disaster management authority warned that a lake formed by debris blocking the Bhotekoshi River at the flood site was rising and at risk of bursting. On the other side of the border, China said that some three million cubic metres of water – the equivalent of about 1,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools – was expected to flow into an already dammed lake over the next three days. There is a high risk the lake could breach, with peak flow expected around Sept 1, Chinese state media said, citing the water resources ministry.
“The volume of water is continuing to increase, and so is the risk,” Zhu Jinfeng, a researcher at the ministry’s hydrology department, told state broadcaster CCTV.
Chinese rescuers had yet to reach the worst-hit area on the Chinese side of the border, the Gyirong border crossing, by the evening of Aug 27, state-media reports indicated, as crews worked to clear debris from the key access road leading to the area. The Gyirong border port has a key role in trade and travel between the two countries.
Human and Environmental Impact
Images showed what appeared to be the second floors of buildings in Nepal’s hard-hit Nuwakot district slathered in mud after the torrent rushed by. Riverbanks and village streets were covered in mud. Debris hung from tree branches and wires. Vehicles were buried, and some stunned survivors were caked in mud. Before-and-after images aired by state broadcaster China Central Television showed a multistory building and more than a dozen vehicles covered in mud. A two-lane road running along a river in a valley in Tibet's Shigatse prefecture was completely buried. Aerial footage also showed that a lake had formed and expanded on the China–Nepal border.
Sagar Pandey, the chief executive of a Himalayan tourism operator, told Reuters after flying over the zone: “There are no human-made things, no human settlement left. Everything is just flat.”
Nirajan Paudyal, a journalist based in Nepal's capital of Kathmandu, worried for his parents and other relatives in the district's village of Soley. “I fear there won’t be any update,” he said.
The region saw similar flash floods in August 2025, when a glacial lake in Tibet overflowed because of high temperatures. Nine people were killed, and critical infrastructure, including a bridge connecting Nepal and China, was damaged.