Floods in the Himalayas: more than 600 dead, rescuers searching for thousands missing

Rescuers redoubled their efforts on Saturday to locate some 3,000 missing people and evacuate survivors stranded at the border between Nepal and China, three days after the terrible flood that killed more than 600 people and left a landscape of devastation.

"All the houses near the river have been swept away. There is nothing left," Buddhi Ram Dangol, a Nepalese man from the buried valley, told AFP.

According to official figures that are still very provisional, a total of 633 bodies - 626 on the Nepalese side, 7 in the Chinese territory of Tibet - have been exhumed since Wednesday from the thick layer of mud and rubble of the many buildings, roads, bridges and construction sites swept away by the wave.

Seven bodies found dozens of kilometers downstream in northern India, currently being identified, could join the list of victims of the disaster.

Experts and scientists attribute it to the collapse of a huge glacier, initially mistakenly recorded as a magnitude 5.2 earthquake, which instantly transformed a peaceful river into a raging torrent.

In the disaster areas, authorities are struggling to find some 3,000 people - 2,426 in Nepal and 556 on the Chinese side - from whom they have had no news since Wednesday.

Among them are hundreds of tourists, pilgrims and foreign workers employed on dam construction sites in the region, as well as an ever-increasing number of residents from the devastated villages.

Relatives of the missing continued to flock on Saturday to the Nepalese relief field headquarters, set up in a barracks in the town of Bidur.

"I came to get news of my son," Kalka Sharda told AFP, reading from the list of rescued people posted outside the camp. "He worked at a hydroelectric power station, but I can't find his name," he added, "the authorities aren't saying anything."

- Tunnel -

In China, thousands of rescuers continue to battle their way through the devastated area to the heart of the disaster zone, the Gyirong border crossing at an altitude of 1,830 meters. According to the Xinhua news agency, just over 500 rescuers are now working there.

State broadcaster CCTV aired footage of helmeted firefighters crossing a torrent in inflatable boats or being airlifted by a powerful drone. "The biggest challenge is ensuring the safety of our military personnel," said officer Jiang Wanqiang.

On both sides of the border, rescue workers are operating under the threat of a sudden collapse of the lake formed on Wednesday by the glacier's collapse into the river. On Friday, their rescue operations were hampered by alerts related to possible avalanches, which were subsequently lifted.

On the Nepalese side, more than 80 rescuers were still trying to make their way to a tunnel at the Trishuli-3 dam construction site, where about 100 people have been held captive for three days.

"Work to clear the tunnel intensified on Saturday morning," the office of Prime Minister Balendra Shah reported on Saturday, "but their efforts are hampered by adverse weather conditions."

A team of specialist rescuers arrived from neighboring India to assist them.

More than 350 workers and residents have already been evacuated from the area. "I survived because I was in the tunnel," one of them, Buddha Tamang, told AFP after his evacuation. "Site managers were working on the other side; they were all swept away."

The head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Nepal, David Fisher, estimated on Friday that 93,000 people had been affected by the disaster, describing it as an "enormous trauma".

Floods and landslides are common during the monsoon season – between June and September – in Nepal, Tibet, and throughout South Asia. Scientists say climate change is increasing their intensity and frequency.