Jakarta, ThedailyID — At least 165 people have died and 1,384 others, including foreign tourists, remain missing after flash floods and landslides struck Nepal and Tibet, an autonomous region of China, on Wednesday (26/8).
Nepal’s disaster agency reported that 826 people remained unreachable more than 24 hours after the disaster. According to The Guardian, around 600 of those missing are foreign tourists.
Among those reported missing are 177 Indian nationals, 63 Americans, 34 Australians, 33 Britons, and 25 Canadians.
China’s government separately reported 558 people missing on the Tibet side of the border, including 260 foreign nationals. Authorities have yet to determine whether the figures overlap.
The disaster struck areas around the Himalayas on Wednesday, with videos circulating online showing floodwaters sweeping through buildings, homes, roads, and construction sites.
Rescue teams are still searching for victims, but extensive mud and debris have made the operation difficult.
Nepal’s national disaster management authority said an initial analysis of satellite imagery from Planet Labs indicated that an ice and rock landslide triggered a debris-filled flood in the Lhende River, about 20 kilometers northeast of the Nepal-China border crossing at Rasuwagadhi.
Experts have also warned that the extreme terrain of the Himalayas could worsen the impact of the disaster.
