Rescuers search mud as Nepal-China toll nears 3,000

NEPAL/BIDUR:

 

Rescuers in Nepal and China were battling on Saturday to locate thousands of people missing days after a deadly,

tsunami-like wall of water and debris swept through the Himalayan region, engulfing entire villages.

Figures from both countries put the number of missing close to 3,000, with 682 bodies recovered -- and reports of some dead possibly swept downstream as far away as India.

Rescue worker Kawan Koirala, from the Nepal Scout Disaster Response

Team, said they were struggling in thick, leg-sucking mud.

"People want their family member's body back, either dead or alive, but we cannot find them... you can see the mud," he told AFP, exhausted after an 18-hour shift.

"It is very traumatic for me too. It is my first time seeing these types of things. Everywhere is mud. We faced flood in Nepal before, but not like this."

The US Geological Survey said the disaster on the Tibet-Nepal border on Wednesday was caused by a glacial collapse that created a torrent of debris downstream.

While the exact cause of the collapse is unclear, climate change is causing glaciers to melt worldwide, increasing

the risks of such disasters.

'Nothing left'

Survivors face an agonising wait to learn the fate of missing relatives, and the prospect of rebuilding their lives from nothing.

"All the settlements near the river were swept away," Buddhi Ram Dangol told AFP in Nepal's Nuwakot district. "There is nothing left."

At Bidur's army base, a key rescue hub in the same district, relatives crowded around lists of rescued people pasted on a wall.

"I have come here looking for my son," said Kalka Sharda, scanning the list in desperation. "He was a labourer at the hydropower plant, but I can't find his name, and the authorities are not saying anything."

In an area home to vast energy infrastructure projects, Nepal's disaster authority listed 933 hydropower workers among the missing, along with 517 foreigners, including trekkers and Hindu pilgrims to Tibet's sacred Mount Kailash.

'Enormous' trauma

The trauma of Wednesday's catastrophe has been "enormous", and as many as 93,000 people may have been affected, the Red Cross said, with the death toll expected to rise.

Nepal's reconstruction bill could run into "billions of dollars", Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said Saturday.

"The urgency is on rescue and saving lives as much as we can," he said, appealing for specialised assistance, including heavy-lift drones and technology to help locate people who are trapped.

He also called for forensic testing kits to identify bodies and freezer units to store them, saying bodies that have been in water could decompose at a faster rate.

"Our own healthcare capacity is very limited to put these bodies in a frozen state for a long time," he said.

Emergency teams worked flat-out to find survivors as widespread devastation left communities short of food and water.

Fears of further flooding have compounded the search for the missing.

The deluge of ice and mud caused huge lakes, and one of these formations has become a risk of further floods.

In Tibet, where Chinese authorities are the only source of information, Beijing had paused its rescue operation at the hardest-hit area of Gyirong over the risk of renewed flooding.

On the Nepali side, soldiers were trying desperately to drill through to 100 people trapped in tunnels at multiple hydropower projects on Saturday.