Nepal flood kills 939, hundreds trapped in tunnels
Shafaq News- Kathmandu
Rescue teams in Nepal, joined by Chinese and Indian tunnel experts, are racing to reach hundreds of workers believed trapped underground at hydropower projects wrecked by last week's catastrophic Himalayan flood, as the death toll climbed past 900, officials said Monday.
The flood struck the Nepal-China border on Wednesday when a glacier collapsed, sending a torrent of ice, rock and mud down the river valleys. At least 939 people have died in Nepal, and 3,925 remain missing, the country's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said in its latest update. Across the border in China's Tibet region, state broadcaster CCTV reported 16 dead and 546 missing.
The disaster has swept up people from dozens of countries. Nepal's tourism board said 583 foreign nationals were among the missing on its side of the border, while 315 others had been rescued, including citizens of India, China, Germany, the United States, Italy and Turkiye. In China, authorities reported at least 261 foreigners from 23 countries unaccounted for, among them nationals of Nepal, India, Latvia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Among the missing are 933 workers from 11 hydropower projects, many of whom are believed to have been working in about half a dozen tunnels when the flood struck.
The tunnels, built to channel water for power generation, are wide enough to drive a truck through, and rescuers have managed to pipe oxygen to some of those trapped. But heavy debris is slowing the work. "A large amount of debris has been deposited, and that is posing us a big challenge to open the tunnels," army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet told Reuters.
Bad weather has repeatedly halted the operation since Friday, and officials fear fresh flooding, as a lake that formed along the border during the disaster has begun spilling into Nepal's rivers. India is supplying prefabricated Bailey bridges to help crews reach areas cut off by washed-out roads, and aid has arrived from the United Nations, the Red Cross, Australia, South Korea and the United States. Nepal has said it does not need help with the general search but accepted assistance from India and China for their tunnel-rescue expertise.
