Nepal\u2019s rescue teams, helped by Chinese and Indian experts, worked overnight to reach hundreds of people believed to be stuck inside blocked hydropower project tunnels in the aftermath of last week\u2019s Himalayan flood that carved a trail of destruction in the country\u2019s valley towns and villages as well as across the border in China.<\/p>\n
The unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud and debris on the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday blamed on a glacier collapse killed nearly 800 people and more than 3 000 are still missing.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of bodies, many unidentified, have been buried in shallow graves as they began decomposing in the humid weather in the plains of the Himalayan country after being swept down the mountains by the torrent.<\/p>\n
Nepali officials said that the focus was on reaching the hundreds of workers believed to be trapped inside about half a dozen hydropower project tunnels that had been blocked by mud and rock debris.<\/p>\n
Pictures and videos shared by rescue teams showed earth-moving equipment digging and shovelling mud and rocks under lights in the dark of the night as workers watched. Soldiers used torchlight in a big pit they had created to look for space to get into one tunnel.<\/p>\n
Nepal\u2019s disaster management authority said that 933 people were missing from hydropower projects in the flood-hit region. The Red Cross has estimated that more than 90 000 people are likely to have been affected by the disaster, which China has linked to the effects of climate change.
\n\u201cA large amount of debris has been deposited and that is posing us a big challenge to open the tunnels, a Nepal army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet told Reuters. \u201cOur main focus is on opening the tunnels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Balendra Shah said the flood was \u201cunprecedented and devastating natural disaster\u201d and it remained challenging to compile a complete assessment of the damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the adverse weather, difficult terrain and continuing risks, we are moving forward with determination to save the lives of our citizens,\u201d he said in a Facebook post late on Sunday, adding that nearly 21 000 security personnel were involved in the rescue operations, besides civilian workers and volunteers.<\/p>\n
Nepali authorities said 788 had died, with 2 500 missing, including more than 900 people at hydropower projects, as of Sunday night. On the Chinese side, authorities said 16 people were killed in Gyirong County and 546 were missing.<\/p>\n
Beijing has said 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries were unaccounted for in Tibet, near a key border crossing with Nepal.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s state-run closed-circuit television reported Beijing has mobilised more than 2 100 rescue workers and allocated at least 220 million Yuan ($33 million) to support relief efforts and has been airdropping equipment and supplies to frontline rescuers, while its soldiers used life-detection equipment to look for the missing.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":43918,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-44327","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Beijing has said 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries were unaccounted for in Tibet.","published_date":"","news_description":"Beijing has said 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries were unaccounted for in Tibet.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44328,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44327\/revisions\/44328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=44327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}