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Rescuers in Nepal and China yesterday battled to locate thousands of people missing days after a deadly, tsunami-like wall of water and debris swept through the Himalayan region, engulfing entire villages.
Figures from both countries put the number of missing close to 3,000, with 682 bodies recovered — and reports of some dead possibly swept downstream as far away as India.
In a breakthrough late yesterday, the Nepali army was able to insert a pipe into a tunnel at the Trishuli 3A hydroelectric site where workers are believed to be trapped.
“We have already started sending air through the small opening, and we will now begin excavation work and send the rescue team inside,” Home Minister Sudan Gurung said in a statement.
More than 100 workers may still be alive and trapped inside such tunnels, with rescue efforts focused on the Trishuli 3A and 3B sites.
Rescue worker Kawan Koirala, from the Nepal Scout Disaster Response Team, said they were struggling in thick, leg-sucking mud.
“People want their family member’s body back, either dead or alive, but we cannot find them… you can see the mud,” he told AFP, exhausted after an 18-hour shift.
“It is very traumatic for me too. It is my first time seeing these types of things. Everywhere is mud. We faced flood in Nepal before, but not like this.”
Survivors face an agonising wait to learn the fate of missing relatives, and the prospect of rebuilding their lives from nothing.
“All the settlements near the river were swept away,” Buddhi Ram Dangol told AFP in Nepal’s Nuwakot district. “There is nothing left.”
At Bidur’s army base, a key rescue hub in the same district, relatives crowded around lists of rescued people pasted on a wall.
“I have come here looking for my son,” said Kalka Sharda, scanning the list in desperation. “He was a labourer at the hydropower plant, but I can’t find his name, and the authorities are not saying anything.”
In an area home to vast energy infrastructure projects, Nepal’s disaster authority listed 933 hydropower workers among the missing, along with 517 foreigners, including trekkers and Hindu pilgrims to Tibet’s sacred Mount Kailash.
“The urgency is on rescue and saving lives as much as we can,” he said, appealing for specialised assistance, including heavy-lift drones and technology to help locate people who are trapped.
He also called for forensic testing kits to identify bodies and freezer units to store them, saying bodies that have been in water could decompose at a faster rate.
“Our own healthcare capacity is very limited to put these bodies in a frozen state for a long time,” he said.
Emergency teams worked flat-out to find survivors as widespread devastation left communities short of food and water.
Fears of further flooding have compounded the search for the missing.
The deluge of ice and mud caused huge lakes, and one of these formations has become a risk of further floods.
In Tibet, where Chinese authorities are the only source of information, Beijing had paused its rescue operation at the hardest-hit area of Gyirong over the risk of renewed flooding.
On the Nepali side, soldiers were trying desperately to drill through to 100 people trapped in tunnels at multiple hydropower projects yesterday.
The prime minister’s office said teams had begun “clearing mud and debris” to open the entrance, while a specialised Indian tunnel rescue unit had arrived to help, with a Chinese team on its way.
Nepal’s expert mountain rescue teams — used to aiding climbers on the world’s highest peaks, including Everest — are also joining the search.
“We do similar work on the mountains, with rescue operations for people trapped in risky places so I believe our skills will be useful,” Tul Singh Gurung, president of Nepal National Mountain Guide Association, told AFP.
Workers rescued from other dam projects along the Trishuli valley described a disaster that unfolded with terrifying speed.
Nepal reported a death toll of 675 people yesterday.
There are 2,426 people, including hundreds of foreigners, who are out of contact in the country.
Hope was fading for some still waiting desperately for news.
Kalka Sharda, in Bidur, was searching lists of rescued for his 18-year-old son Vinod Sharda, a hydropower plant labourer.
“I don’t think there is any hope left,” he said. “Because, if he was alive, he would have found a way to get in touch.”
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