Nepal flood toll tops 900 as rescuers search tunnels

Rescue teams in Nepal are racing to reach hundreds of workers believed trapped in hydropower tunnels after a glacier collapse unleashed catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-Tibet border, killing at least 903 people in Nepal and leaving 4,247 missing, officials said Monday.

The flood, which struck Wednesday, sent ice, rock, mud and debris down mountain valleys, wiping out communities and cutting off roads in hard-hit areas. Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said the missing include 592 foreign nationals. State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told Fox News on Sunday that about 85 Americans were still unaccounted for.

Nepali officials said rescue teams, aided by Chinese and Indian experts, were focusing on about a dozen hydropower project tunnels blocked by mud and rock debris. Al Jazeera reported that 933 hydropower workers were missing, along with about 500 workers from the Truck and Container Association.

“A large amount of debris has been deposited and that is posing us a big challenge to open the tunnels,” Nepal army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet told Reuters. “Our main focus is on opening the tunnels.”

Images and videos shared by rescue teams showed earth-moving equipment digging through mud and rocks under floodlights, while soldiers used torches to search a large pit for possible access to one tunnel. Narendra Pariyar, the district administrator of Rasuwa, one of the hardest-hit districts, said the weather improved Monday and rescue work was gaining pace after operations were suspended several times since Friday because of bad weather and new flood risks.

“The disaster here is overwhelming,” Ferrin Cole, operations director at the U.S.-based Crisis Response International, told NBC News. “The flood that came down that mountain just wiped out cities. We’re going in as fast as we can to get people the help that they need.”

More than 10,400 people have been rescued in Nepal, including 277 foreign nationals, Nepali officials said. The Nepal Red Cross said more than 90,000 people have been affected.

The scale of the disaster has strained morgues. A police officer in Chitwan district told Reuters that “more than half” the bodies recovered there were “beyond recognition.” Al Jazeera reported that morgues at a hospital in Kathmandu had reached capacity and that families were searching other hospitals for missing relatives. Hundreds of bodies, many unidentified, have been buried in shallow graves as they began decomposing in humid weather.

Prime Minister Balendra Shah called the flood an “unprecedented and devastating natural disaster” and said a complete assessment of the damage remained difficult. “Despite the adverse weather, difficult terrain and continuing risks, we are moving forward with determination to save the lives of our citizens,” he wrote Sunday on Facebook, adding that nearly 21,000 security personnel were involved alongside civilian workers and volunteers.

Across the border, Chinese authorities reported at least 16 deaths and 546 people missing in Tibet, including foreign nationals. China’s state-run CCTV said Beijing had mobilized more than 2,100 rescue workers and allocated at least 220 million yuan, or $33 million, for relief efforts. China has also sent nine tunnel rescue experts to Nepal and shared satellite information with Nepali authorities, Al Jazeera reported.

CCTV reported that a landslide-dammed lake above the border checkpoint was overflowing, complicating rescue work, though it said the likelihood of a complete breach was “relatively low.” Heavy rain in Nepal has also raised river levels and prompted fresh warnings for people living along waterways.