DM Monitoring
BEIJING: 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 in treacherous conditions 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,” Raja Ram Basnet, Nepal Army spokesman, told media on Tuesday.
“Our soldiers are also deployed to collect bodies and prevent the spread of disease.”
With mortuaries overflowing in Nepal, the 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.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah has called the catastrophe “unimaginable and heartbreaking”.
‘Find their bodies’
In the capital Kathmandu, crowds lined up to search for their missing relatives, posting photographs on a long wall outside a hospital, in the fading hope of finding them alive.
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 the town of Trishuli Bazaar, after being swept away by last week’s surge.
A warning alert sounded, but the elderly woman was “too old to run”, he recounts.
“Her granddaughter was helping her escape, but both were swept away.”
Sapkota says he no longer has “any hope that they survived”, after witnesses saw them being carried away by the torrent.
“I am here hoping to find their bodies,” he said, holding up photos of the two missing women dressed in traditional clothes.
In Chitwan district, mourning relatives cremated some of the dead.
Soldiers were seen unloading bodies of victims from helicopters in Nepal’s Nuwakot and Rasuwa districts.
Aid needs are enormous. Entire communities have been swept away, leaving families homeless and using makeshift shelters as heavy rain lashes down.
Roads and dozens of bridges have been smashed, and power plants destroyed.
“There are too many challenges,” said police officer E. Hawadi in badly affected Nuwakot district.
