Nepal Flood Toll Climbs as Rescuers Race to Reach Trapped Workers
Nepal’s flood toll rose sharply as rescuers searched unstable valleys and blocked hydropower tunnels for thousands of missing people. Damage to communities, roads and power projects points to a long and costly recovery.
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A widening disaster in the Himalayan valleys
Nepal’s death toll reached 675 on Saturday, August 29, while 2,498 people remained missing as rescue teams pushed into remote flood-hit areas for a fourth daythehindu. The disaster began Wednesday when a collapsing mass of glacier ice and rock unleashed water, mud and debris through river valleys along the Nepal-Tibet borderaljazeera.
The scale of the missing rose sharply after hydropower operators reported more than 900 workers unaccounted for at projects along the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli riversnytimes. Authorities said more than 7,500 people had been rescued, but damaged roads, unstable slopes and thick mud continued to obstruct accessthehindu.
Tunnel searches become the urgent test
Rescuers are concentrating on hydropower tunnels where workers may still be trapped. Nepal said 279 people had been brought out of project tunnels over two days, while specialist teams from India and China joined an operation complicated by entrances blocked with mud and bouldersthehindu. The army has used drilling equipment and explosives to locate and open some passagesnytimes.
At Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, relatives have posted photographs of missing children, workers and entire families as they search patient lists for survivors. In Chitwan, farther downstream, morgues have been overwhelmed by bodies carried along the river, forcing officials to arrange temporary storage and identification procedurestheguardian. Authorities plan to preserve DNA before burying 229 unidentified remains because decomposition poses a health risknytimes +1.
Recovery will extend far beyond the search
The torrent swept away communities and damaged an estimated 80-kilometre road section, dozens of bridges and about 700 megawatts of operating or planned hydropower capacitybloomberg. Nepal’s finance minister said losses could reach several billion dollars, a severe burden for a country still shaped by the long reconstruction after its 2015 earthquakebloomberg.
Scientists believe a rock-and-ice avalanche about 1 to 1.3 kilometres wide detached near the Lirung massif, temporarily dammed a river and then released a destructive flood wave when the blockage failedreading. Glacier retreat, degrading permafrost and unusually warm summer conditions may have contributed to slope instability, although researchers have not established the precise role of climate change in this eventreading +1.
The immediate danger has not fully passed. The initial flood left unstable debris dams and undercut slopes, while monsoon rain could trigger further landslides or renewed floodingreading. That threat forces rescuers to balance speed against the risk of sending more people into a landscape that is still shifting.