More than 5,000 people are reported missing in Nepal after flash floods killed more than 1,200 people across Nepal and Tibet. A further 546 people are reported missing in Tibet, while rescue teams remain unable to reach some of Nepal’s worst-hit communities.
The floods destroyed homes, roads, bridges and schools along the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river valleys. In places including Betrawati and Rasuwa district, survivors are searching through mud for relatives as helicopters evacuate people from isolated mountain villages.
Betrawati residents search a town buried in mud
Betrawati, once a market town on the Trishuli River, is now covered in thick mud. Only the top two floors of a six-storey building remain visible, while most houses were washed away or overturned. A grocery shop was carried about 200 metres, and the river has cut a new channel through the former highway.
At least 250 people are missing in the area. Search and rescue teams recovered 24 bodies from one house in a single day, while residents picked through debris containing kettles, children’s toys, medicine packets and other fragments of daily life. For additional context, see “Flood disaster leaves more than 1,300 missing across Nepal and Tibet”.
Dil Bahadur Shrestha, 70, has been searching by hand for his wife, Jamuna, after the house where she was last seen was destroyed. His brother and sister-in-law are also among those missing. Santamaya Lawat said five members of her family were gone, and that her newly built home remained filled with mud.
Timeline
- At 8.37am, a melting glacier high in the Himalayas on the Nepal-Tibet border crashed into the valley below.
- By 8.50am, Betrawati had been engulfed by flash floods, leaving residents only a few minutes’ warning.
- A week after the disaster, survivors were still being evacuated by army helicopter from mountain areas.
- Police search and rescue teams later began ground operations in Timure and recovered 90 bodies.
Villages in Rasuwa remain cut off
In Rasuwa district near the Tibetan border, several villages were swept away and can be reached only by army helicopter. Syabru Besi was left with only one building standing, and local officials said at least 500 people there were missing.
Chhiring Dorje escaped with other residents to a forest, where they spent two days without food before the army arrived by helicopter. His five family members are missing. At Dhunche army base, his nine-year-old granddaughter, Ritu Tamang, waited for transport to Kathmandu after her school and home were destroyed. A related part of this story is covered in “Glacial collapse leaves at least 165 dead after Nepal-Tibet flood”.
Destroyed roads slow relief deliveries
The highways connecting Kathmandu with Rasuwa have been washed away. The remaining route is an unpaved track of mud and stones that can take more than 12 hours, and many aid trucks are stuck in Dhunche because they cannot travel farther north.
At a relief camp operated by Nepal’s Dhulikhel hospital, people collected food and medicine. Doctors said dozens of children there had lost their parents. More than 200 children from Nilakantha school, most aged five to 11, are missing after the flood struck as many local children walked to morning classes. The development of this issue can be followed in “Why deadly floods devastated India’s Upper Assam”.
A warning reached the school about 10 minutes before the water arrived. Staff stopped a school bus midway, allowing the students on board to survive, but they could not save children who were still on the road.
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