One Thousand
The death toll from devastating Himalayan glacial floods crossed the grim 1'000 mark on Tuesday, as Chinese and Nepali teams searched for survivors including dozens feared trapped in hydropower tunnels. Nearly 4'500 people are missing after the gigantic wave of freezing water, rocks and debris from a high-altitude glacial collapse roared downstream on Wednesday, wiping out entire settlements and gouging a path of destruction through Nepal.
Nepali rescue teams are digging, drilling and blasting through debris in a race against time to free around 100 hydropower workers believed trapped in multiple tunnels. So far, only corpses have been pulled out of tunnels blocked with sludge. "We are focused on search and rescue efforts at the tunnels, our work is continuing," Nepal Army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told AFP. "Our soldiers are also deployed to collect bodies and prevent the spread of disease."
Find their bodies
With mortuaries overflowing, authorities have begun burying hundreds of unidentified bodies after DNA sampling. At least 17 bodies have also been pulled from rivers far downstream in India. In Kathmandu, crowds lined up to search for missing relatives, posting photographs on a long wall outside a hospital.
Debu Sapkota, a 58-year-old driver, came to post photos of his 83-year-old mother-in-law and granddaughter who went missing in Trishuli Bazaar. A warning alert sounded, but the elderly woman was "too old to run." "Her granddaughter was helping her escape but both were swept away." Sapkota says he no longer has any hope that they survived. "I am here hoping to find their bodies."
Foreigners missing include 583 in Nepal and 261 in China, coming from more than 30 nations, including tourists who had come for trekking. Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah has called the catastrophe "unimaginable and heartbreaking."