Nepal-China flood survivors describe ‘tsunami’ as rescuers monitor two new lakes for another possible deluge
KATHMANDU/NUWAKOT — Survivors of the catastrophic Nepal-China border floods described a wall of mud, rock and water that arrived “like a tsunami” as rescue teams on Friday searched for thousands of people still unaccounted for while authorities confronted a dangerous new threat upstream: two lakes formed around the site of the Himalayan glacier and rock collapse that triggered Wednesday's disaster. One began overflowing on Friday and temporarily forced rescuers to retreat, while satellite imagery showed a second, larger lake apparently growing upstream with no visible outlet, raising fears that communities already devastated once could face another sudden surge of water and debris.
The scale of Wednesday's disaster became clearer as rescue teams pushed deeper into Rasuwa district and areas along the border with China's Tibet region. Nepal's disaster-management authority reported 579 deaths on Friday, although Nepal police subsequently gave a lower count of 553, highlighting the difficulty of reconciling casualty figures across an enormous and inaccessible disaster zone. Nepal's Foreign Ministry had earlier confirmed 538 bodies recovered from river areas as of 3 p.m. local time. Five deaths have been reported in Tibet, while almost 2,500 people were listed as unaccounted for across Nepal and China in the latest AP reporting. With lists still being reconciled and communications severed in some communities, authorities warned that casualty and missing-person figures remain fluid.
For those who escaped, the speed of the destruction left almost no time to understand what was happening. Customs officer Karbir Gaire was working in Timure, close to the Chinese border, when he first felt the ground shake. Seconds later, he saw what he described as a “black storm” rushing toward the settlement and ran uphill. Gaire told AP that the brief warning probably saved lives and said the devastation looked more like a cinematic disaster than a conventional flood. “I don't call it a flood. It was a tsunami,” he said. Fifteen of his colleagues remained missing.
Scientists examining satellite data say the catastrophe began when bedrock beneath a glacier high in the Himalayas collapsed, carrying ice and enormous quantities of rock downhill. The event was powerful enough to generate a seismic signal measured at approximately magnitude 5.2, but scientists say the collapse itself produced the shaking rather than an earthquake necessarily triggering the disaster. Rock, ice and meltwater then entered steep river valleys, creating an extraordinarily fast debris-laden torrent capable of sweeping away buildings, bridges, vehicles and sections of road as it travelled downstream into Tibet and Nepal.
But the collapse did not end when Wednesday's flood passed. The same avalanche deposited huge volumes of rock, ice and debris across mountain drainage channels, effectively creating natural dams behind which water began accumulating. Satellite imagery and Chinese aerial surveys subsequently identified new bodies of water near the collapse zone. Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority says the river blockage has created a continuing danger because water retained behind unstable debris can suddenly escape and generate another downstream flood.
The first major alarm came Friday morning when authorities said one barrier lake had begun overflowing. Rasuwa's senior district official Narendra Pariyar said officials could see the river level rising, while Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that the dammed lake upstream of the devastated Gyirong border port had started to overflow. Nepal suspended rescue operations for about 90 minutes, helicopters stopped flying into the affected area and residents were seen moving toward higher ground. Chinese rescuers, vehicles and equipment also withdrew because officials feared not only another flood but secondary hazards including avalanches and mountain collapses. Operations resumed later after monitoring indicated the immediate risk from that lake had become manageable.
The easing of that threat, however, did not eliminate the danger. Satellite imagery reviewed on Friday showed two lakes close to the glacier-collapse site. Water was draining from the lake that caused the morning alarm, but a second lake farther upstream appeared larger in surface area and was growing. Critically, imagery available Friday morning showed no visible outlet from the second lake, suggesting water pressure could continue accumulating behind the debris. An official with Nepal's disaster-management authority told Reuters that the flood threat would remain until both lakes had completely drained.
Weather could determine what happens next. Light to moderate rain around the Gyirong border area has already loosened soil and rock in the unstable mountains, and rainfall is forecast to continue during the coming week. Scientists say high temperatures are also contributing to continued glacial melting, while the enormous quantity of debris deposited across the valleys means water can become trapped at multiple locations. A new breach would not necessarily reproduce Wednesday's extraordinary catastrophe, experts told AP, but even a smaller surge could be extremely dangerous because hundreds of rescuers, displaced residents and damaged infrastructure now occupy the downstream flood zone.
That danger is particularly acute around the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project, where Nepal's army has been trying to reach more than 100 people believed trapped in a tunnel buried by thick mud. About 350 people have already been rescued from the tunnel area, according to the army. More broadly, over 3,700 people have been rescued in Nepal, including more than 3,200 airlifted by helicopter, but destroyed roads and deep layers of mud have slowed access to isolated communities. A second flood could force teams to abandon precisely the locations where chances of finding survivors are diminishing by the hour.
The disaster has also become an international missing-person crisis. Nepal's tourism authorities say more than 500 foreigners are among those unaccounted for, including tourists, workers and pilgrims travelling toward Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred destination for Hindus and Buddhists. Around 90 Americans were reported unaccounted for, while families in India, the United States and other countries have been trying to reconstruct relatives' final movements from telephone calls, travel-company records and fragmented information from both sides of the border.
China has mobilised engineers to survey the unstable terrain using aerial reconnaissance and three-dimensional modelling, while Nepalese authorities continue monitoring river levels downstream. Scientists caution that newly created barrier lakes are inherently difficult to predict because they are held not by engineered dams but by loose accumulations of ice, rock and sediment. Water can gradually escape without catastrophe, or erosion can weaken the debris until part of the barrier suddenly collapses. That uncertainty explains why rescuers were ordered uphill Friday even while thousands of people remained missing below.
The rescue operation has therefore become a race against two clocks. Teams are trying to find survivors before the chances of survival fall further, while simultaneously watching mountains transformed by the original collapse for signs that another wall of water could descend. The first lake's partial drainage offered some relief Friday. The discovery that another, apparently larger lake remained upstream means the danger has not passed.
For communities that watched Wednesday's torrent erase roads, bridges and buildings within seconds, official warnings about another flood carry an especially terrifying meaning. Survivors did not experience the first disaster as water gradually rising through a valley. They describe shaking, a dark mass appearing upstream and then only seconds to run. What rescuers fear now is not simply more rain or another ordinary flood, but that the altered Himalayan landscape itself has become part of the emergency — storing water behind unstable barriers above thousands of people searching through the destruction below.