International assistance is being mobilized after catastrophic flash floods hit the China-Nepal border region, leaving nearly 1,500 people missing and at least 168 dead, Reuters reported.
The U.S. said it would send a disaster response adviser and provide $500,000 in assistance, while India supplied tents, food and other emergency aid to communities in Nepal. U.N. teams and partner organizations are also deploying personnel and supplies to affected areas.
More than 5,000 Nepali army and police personnel have joined rescue operations, with helicopters being used to search for survivors and deliver supplies to communities cut off by the flooding.
Nearly 1,500 people are reported missing across Nepal and Tibet, including almost 800 foreign nationals. Nepali authorities said 826 people were missing in the country, almost 500 of them foreigners, while Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported 558 people missing in Tibet’s Gyirong county, including 260 foreign nationals. Nepal’s death toll stood at 165, while China reported three deaths.
An initial analysis found that the disastrous flood was caused by a landslide of ice and rock that unleashed a debris-laden flood into the Lhende River, about 20 kilometers northeast of the Nepal-China Rasuwagadhi border crossing.
Although initial reports suggested the glacier collapse was triggered by an earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey said what was initially reported as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake was actually seismic energy generated by the collapse of glacial rock and ice itself.
Meanwhile, Chinese authorities have warned of further danger upstream from a lake that remains dammed in Gyirong, above the flood-hit Tibet-Nepal border area.
