Nepal’s death toll from catastrophic Himalayan flooding reached 903 Monday as thousands remained missing across Nepal and China and rescuers focused on hundreds of hydropower workers believed trapped inside massive tunnels buried by mud and debris.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Rescue teams in Nepal were racing Monday to reach hundreds of workers believed trapped inside hydropower tunnels after catastrophic flooding devastated mountain communities, buried infrastructure and pushed the confirmed death toll in Nepal above 900.
Nepal’s disaster agency reported 903 deaths and 4,247 people missing in the country, including 592 foreigners.
Across the border in China, authorities had reported 16 deaths and 546 people missing as of Sunday. Chinese state media said 261 of those missing were foreigners, including more than 100 Nepalis.
Combined, the confirmed death toll in the two countries surpassed 900 while more than 4,700 people remained unaccounted for.
Some of the most urgent rescue operations centered on hydropower projects in Nepal’s Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts, where enormous tunnels used to divert water and provide access to power-generating infrastructure were inundated or buried after the disaster.
The Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal, known as IPPAN, said at least 900 workers were unaccounted for at 12 damaged hydropower projects.
Mohan Kumar Dangi, the association’s president, estimated that at least 500 of those workers could still be inside tunnels.
Authorities have issued differing estimates as rescue teams attempt to determine exactly how many people were working at each facility when the flooding struck.
Foreign rescue teams were also assisting Nepali personnel.
Some workers were able to make contact and ask for help when the disaster began last Wednesday, Dangi said. Other workers who escaped told authorities and relatives that many colleagues remained inside the tunnels.
By Monday, six days after the flooding, concern was growing that people trapped underground could be running out of breathable air, food and water.
“We are working in search and rescue of the stranded people from hills, settlements and river areas,” Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet, spokesperson for the Nepalese army, said.
The hydropower tunnels may nevertheless have offered some workers a degree of protection from the torrents outside.
Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz in Austria who is based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, said the passages are much larger than ordinary utility tunnels.
“The tunnels are built to access hydropower infrastructure and to divert water — an essential step to generate energy. These tunnels are big enough to drive trucks through,” Steiner said.
That size could have provided space for workers to shelter from the initial flood.
“There is enough place for people to take refuge safely inside and from what we understand they have managed to get oxygen to some of those stuck inside and are trying to rescue them now. It’s a race for time though as people need food and water.”
The Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project in Rasuwa district was among the hardest-hit sites.
Dangi said at least 576 people associated with the project were missing, with approximately 300 believed trapped inside its tunnel system.
Rescue teams had been trying for days to reach survivors while continuing to work through rain and unstable conditions.
At the Trishuli-3 Hydropower Project, crews were attempting to descend approximately 50 feet into a tunnel to reach people believed stranded below, Basnet said.
The flooding also severely damaged Nepal’s electricity infrastructure.
At a power station in Dhading, workers shoveled thick mud from the facility while attempting to restore a site that supplies electricity to more than 20,000 people in the region.
Workers cleaning the station said they hoped any reconstruction would place the facility farther from the river.
The destruction followed flash flooding triggered last Wednesday by a catastrophic collapse high in the Himalayas.
Scientists examining satellite imagery concluded that bedrock beneath a glacier collapsed, carrying part of the glacier with it.
The rockfall was so powerful that it registered as a magnitude 5.2 seismic event.
Rock, ice and meltwater poured into the river system below, rapidly increasing the volume and force of water flowing through Himalayan valleys.
The resulting torrent swept away buildings, bridges, soil and other infrastructure as it moved through Tibet and Nepal.
On the Chinese side of the border, authorities were attempting to rebuild a critical road leading to Gyirong Port, a major crossing between China and Nepal.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV showed trucks carrying large rocks as crews worked beside fast-moving floodwaters to rebuild a washed-out section.
Continuing rainfall had strengthened the current and complicated the work.
The roadway was submerged under approximately 6.6 to 9.8 feet of water, limiting the ability of rescue teams to reach the border area.
CCTV said crews had advanced to within slightly more than 0.62 miles of the border.
Some rescue personnel had already reached the crossing, but they represented only part of the force authorities were attempting to deploy.
Chinese state media reports have focused primarily on official rescue operations, including the deployment of firefighters, the People’s Liberation Army and instructions issued by senior government leaders.
Comparatively little information has emerged about many of the victims on the Chinese side.
Among the families searching for answers is Maraval Nagappan, who traveled to Nepal two days after the flooding to look for his missing son.
Nagappan visited rescue centers and morgues and traveled as far as 25 miles from the location where his son was believed to have disappeared.
He found no trace of him.
His son, Sathya Narayan, had been leading 49 Indian devotees returning from Mount Kailash, a sacred pilgrimage destination in southwestern Tibet.
The group vanished after floodwaters swept through a Chinese immigration complex where they were waiting to cross into Nepal.
Nagappan, who owns the Chennai-based travel company that organized the pilgrimage, said the travelers had expected to complete immigration processing and enter Nepal within roughly two hours.
Instead, floodwaters struck the facility before they could make the crossing.
The pilgrimage began Aug. 14.
“I haven’t heard from my son since then. I don’t know whether he is alive or dead,” Nagappan told The Associated Press.
He said he had not abandoned hope of finding his son alive.
Surveillance footage from the border showed floodwater surging through the immigration complex as people ran for safety.
Nagappan said some people visible escaping in the footage were members of his son’s group and had been identified by their clothing.
The disaster has left rescuers confronting difficult conditions across a wide area spanning high-altitude valleys, damaged roads, buried hydropower facilities and flooded border infrastructure.
The tunnel rescues remain among the most challenging operations because crews must determine which passages remain structurally intact and how to reach workers without triggering further collapses or exposing rescue teams to unstable terrain and water.
The fact that some workers initially managed to call for help has provided families with hope that pockets of survivors may still exist underground.
At the same time, six days without reliable access to food, water and ventilation have increased fears that the window for successful rescues is narrowing.
Authorities in Nepal continued searching settlements, river corridors and mountain areas Monday while crews at damaged power projects attempted to reach the underground tunnels.
With 903 deaths confirmed in Nepal alone, thousands still missing across both countries and hundreds of workers believed trapped underground, the Himalayan flood disaster remained an active search-and-rescue emergency rather than solely a recovery operation.
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