Tsering Phuntsok watched news of the Nepal-Tibet flood unfold from thousands of miles away in southern India. The 46-year-old Tibetan in exile has missing family members on both sides of the border; those in Nepal are named in official government lists, but in Tibet he has received no information. “I have started praying for the lost ones now. I have to accept they will not return [because] … I’m not getting any information.” The flooding disaster is an example of the increasing use by Chinese authorities of “Clean Internet 2026”,…
Tag: Nepal-Tibet flood disaster
Rescuers in Nepal find two more people alive after flood disaster
Emergency responders rescued a Chinese man and a Nepali woman in two separate operations on Saturday, as authorities continued to search for thousands of people missing 10 days after massive floods hit Nepal. The Nepali military said a joint team comprising personnel from its army and South Korean disaster experts rescued the man from a 225-metre (740ft) tunnel in the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project, and that he was undergoing a health assessment. Pictures showed him being evacuated by helicopter after being carried out of the tunnel. Rescue efforts have focused…
‘Everyone seems to have forgotten’: In Tibet, flood-hit families search for the missing and grapple with China’s silence
Fan Hong last heard from her husband on the morning of the Nepal-Tibet disaster. More than a week later, the 31-year-old is desperately searching for information about Lin Bo, who was working on a Chinese highway project in Nepal. Struggling to get information from authorities, Fan turned to social media for help. “My husband works on a project in Nepal, about 5 kilometres from the Gyirong border crossing. I want to know what the situation is, but I haven’t been able to reach him,” the 31-year-old from China’s Sichuan province…
Dozens of trapped hydropower tunnel workers in Nepal could still be alive, official says
There is a high chance that dozens of workers may be found alive after a week trapped in an underground chamber at Nepal’s Rasuwagadhi hydropower plant after deadly flash floods, a Nepal electricity authority official has said. “In Rasuwagadhi, we think 46 people are trapped in a room-like structure in the tunnel,” Amhsu Kiran Shahi, a board member of the Nepal electricity authority, told Reuters on Wednesday. “We are very confident that they must be alive after one week because … they have food and water over there in the…
Swept away: inside the 4 September Guardian Weekly
Over the last week, the world has watched with horror the scenes from the Tibet-Nepal border where a devastating torrent of mud, water and ice tore along the Bhotekoshi River, destroying entire communities and leaving more than 1,000 people dead and several thousand more missing. From the Nepali town of Devighat, our south Asia correspondent Hannah Ellis-Petersen describes a nightmarish scene of overflowing mortuaries and unidentifiable bodies, as shellshocked survivors of the flood slowly return to the ruins of their homes. The disaster happened after the collapse of a glacier…
Nepal-Tibet flood deaths pass 1,000 as police ask relatives for DNA to identify victims
Nepali rescuers have built temporary bridges to reach remote areas and dug through the ruins of hydropower projects in the Himalayas to rescue hundreds of trapped workers, as the death toll passed 1,000 nearly a week after devastating floods left a trail of destruction across the country’s towns and valleys. About 600 people remain stuck in several devastated hydropower stations that have become the focus of rescue efforts. The prime minister, Balendra Shah, said more than 11,000 people had been rescued across the affected region, and power and communication lines…
Nepal-Tibet floods: death toll passes 1,000 as rescue efforts continue at hydropower tunnels – latest updates
From 1h ago Death toll from Nepal-China flood disaster exceeds 1,000, authorities say The death toll from the catastrophic flooding in Nepal and China has passed 1,000 as of Tuesday morning, officials said, with authorities reportedly burying hundreds of unidentified victims after the flood disaster overwhelmed morgues. Nepal’s disaster agency said in an update on Tuesday that 987 deaths had been counted there, with 3,916 people missing, including 583 foreigners. Chinese authorities, in their latest update on Sunday, reported 16 deaths and 546 people still missing. Armed police officers stand…
China is concealing scale of flood disaster, say Tibet campaigners
A Tibetan advocacy group says hundreds of homes were destroyed on the Tibetan side of the border in last week’s deadly floods, raising questions about Beijing’s official account of the scale of the disaster. Public discussion about the flash floods has been restricted, with security officials in Tibet announcing on Sunday that it had penalised at least 10 people for sharing “false disaster information”. There was no further information on the nature of the penalties. Chinese authorities say 16 people have been confirmed dead and 546 are missing, including 261…
Nepal-Tibet floods: rescuers race to reach 900 people believed trapped in hydropower tunnels
Rescue teams are working to reach more than 900 people thought to be trapped in the tunnels and underground areas of half a dozen hydropower projects in Nepal following the devastating flash floods, the country’s disaster management authority said on Monday. The death toll from the unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud and debris that crashed through valleys of Nepal on Wednesday last week has now risen to 903 people, with 16 more dead reported on the Tibet side of the border. More than 4,000 are missing in Nepal, with…
Fifteen Britons among 261 foreigners missing in China after floods
Fifteen British nationals are reported to be missing in China as the search continues for survivors of the devastating flooding in Nepal and Tibet. Nepali and Chinese authorities confirmed an updated death toll of at least 810 on Sunday. More than 3,000 people are believed missing after flash floods triggered by a massive glacier collapse in the Himalayas on Wednesday engulfed Gyirong port on the Nepal-China border. The 15 missing British people are among 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries missing in China, according to figures released by Chinese authorities,…