The latest count of the flood that swept through the region on Wednesday in the Nepali district of Rasuwa raises the death toll to 804 (788 in Nepal and 16 in Tibet) and more than 3,000 people missing, while teams continue with search and rescue efforts.
Nepalese authorities have indicated that efforts are concentrated in the municipalities of Rasuwa, Timure, Trishuli, and Dhunche, where emergency services have managed to evacuate 8,730 people. In total, the mobilized operation in Nepali territory already reaches 19,895 people, according to several local media outlets.
"The Government of Nepal is the guardian of each and every citizen affected by the crisis caused by the flooding in the Bhoekoshi River, in Rasuwa," highlighted Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah in a message posted on social media. He promised that they will help "every affected person" and that they will promote reconstruction, a process that will not stop "until it is completely achieved."
Dozens of employees remain trapped in the tunnels of dams and hydroelectric plants located along the course of the Bhotekoshi. Specialized technical teams are drilling the rock in Rasuwa and Nuwakot to try to access the galleries where the workers are, although they have not yet managed to break through to those tunnels.
At the same time, the international assistance requested by the Nepali government has begun to materialize with the arrival of ten planes at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. These aircraft come from India, the United States, Japan, China, and South Korea, loaded with material and support personnel.
China has intensified its participation in the emergency response by sending two Y-20 transport planes from its Air Force, which have landed in Nepal with 13,200 units of emergency aid supplies, in addition to four Chinese specialists in tunnel rescue. Five other experts in this same field had already arrived the day before to reinforce search operations.
The number of missing persons in Nepal rises to 2,498, to which 546 more are added in the border area of Tibet, among them 261 foreigners, according to the reports released by the authorities on both sides of the border. All this occurs under the threat of new overflow caused by the remnants of the enormous avalanche of ice, water, rocks, and debris that runs through the bed of the Bhotekoshi, which this Sunday has overflowed again.
Surveillance drones deployed in the area have identified a landslide on the slope of a mountain, 2.8 kilometers downstream from the Purepuqiang Tsangpo reservoir. This landslide is attributed to the erosion caused by the first flood and to the large accumulations of water retained after the flood.
Chinese state television CCTV has reported that "the landslide has created a new dam and a new artificial lake is forming" that could break the containment at any moment. For this reason, the rescue personnel operating near the Gyirong border post, now completely buried, have been relocated to areas considered safer.