Nepal flash flood rescue efforts intensify as death toll rises

Kathmandu, Nepal — Rescuers pulled out survivors caked in dark brown mud and helicopters lifted stranded people to safety Friday as Nepal and China raced to respond after catastrophic flash floods and lanslides killed more than 540 people and left more than 1,000 missing.

Nepal authorities said the death toll in the Himalayan nation rose to 538, according to French news agency AFP. Helicopters had carried more than 3,000 people to safety in Kathmandu and other locations, but local Nepalese media said there could still be as many as 12,000 people missing, many times the official counts offered by authorities.

On the Chinese side, there was little information about survivors, although the death toll rose to five Friday as state media showed evacuations of villages and leaders’ efforts to direct relief efforts.

China’s state media previously said 558 people were missing and Nepal’s disaster management authority said Friday that 977 were unaccounted for. Hundreds of the missing are foreigners who were in the area to work, trek or make a pilgrimage to a sacred Nepali peak.

The Red Cross said Friday that some 90,000 people had likely been impacted by the flooding, which is believed to have been triggered by the collapse of a rocky ledge and the vast portion of a glacier it had supported.

The Nepal Police issued a fresh alert Friday after receiving information that a dam on the Tibetan side of the border had burst. Security personnel and rescue and relief workers were told to stay on high alert and immediately move to a safe location if necessary.

It was unclear if that concern was related to fears of flooding from an overflowing barrier lake that formed behind a dam made of debris from the initial flash floods, high up on the Chinese side of the Himalayan mountains.

Nepal police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle said the rescue operation “hasn’t stopped,” but was continuing under high alert.

Although Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported Friday that the lake was more than 6 miles from Gyirong Port, the border crossing with Nepal that was decimated by a wall of mud and water on Wednesday morning, it said the risk of flooding was high. It said the lake was at an elevation of 9,680 feet, about 3,280 feet above Gyirong Port. 

CCTV later said flood risks from the overflowing lake were deemed “manageable,” Reuters reported.

Nepali Army rescuers were working to help people trapped in a hydropower tunnel in Rasuwa, part of the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project.

In video from the scene, rescuers half-pulled, half-pushed a man covered in dark brown mud out of the tunnel. He was one of dozens who were likely trapped inside.

Army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet told The Associated Press the focus was on survivors.

“It is complicated to find the entry and exit points of the tunnel because everything has been covered by mud,” Basnet said. “Our first priority is rescuing the stranded people.”

What caused the flash floods?

Scientists said satellite images indicated that bedrock underneath a glacier high in the Himalayan region had collapsed, taking part of the glacier with it. The rockfall was so extreme, it registered as a magnitude 5.2 seismic event. 

The rocks and melted water suddenly swelled the rivers in the valleys below, causing torrents of water that swept buildings, bridges and earth downstream in Tibet and Nepal.

Scientists were still piecing together information from satellite and ground-level data to confirm exactly what caused the flood, but Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz in Austria who is currently based in Bangladesh, said “a lower part of a glacier has really come off” … noting satellite images that he said made it look “like someone cut with a huge knife through the whole lower part” of the rock and ice.  

The Hindu Kush Himalayan region is warming rapidly, driving major changes in glaciers, snow cover, permafrost and mountain slopes, according to climate scientists.

Around 78% of the glacier area, located between about 14,760 and 19,685 feet above sea level, is highly exposed to warming.

“What happened yesterday is unfortunately the new normal. It’s going to get worse from here onwards,” Steiner said.

Americans among the missing

Hikmat Singh Ayer, CEO and senior director of the Nepal Tourism Board, told CBS News’ Arshad R. Zargar on Thursday that at least 65 Americans were among the missing foreign nationals in the small Himalayan nation, almost doubling the number of U.S. nationals reported missing the previous day.

In a subsequent update, the tourism board said 27 foreign nationals had been rescued from the flood zone in the Rasuwa district, including two U.S. nationals identified as a man and woman in their 50s.  

A U.S. State Department spokesperson told CBS News on Thursday that the agency was aware of about 90 Americans who may be impacted by the floods, and it was continuing to closely track the situation. 

The department said three U.S. citizens had been rescued, and the spokesperson said the agency wasn’t aware of any deaths of U.S. nationals.

President Trump said the flooding was terrible to see, describing how “strong, well-built buildings were wiped out like they were toothpicks.”

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said the U.S. spoke with Nepalese leaders and offered to provide “anything they want.”

Leslie Crespi, a community liaison for the Isha Foundation, a volunteer-run group that promotes well-being founded by Indian spiritual leader Sadhguru Vasudev, told CBS News in an interview that about 80 people who were taking part in a pilgrimage it was running in the region were missing.

“At this point we are awaiting word,” Crespi said in a phone interview from McMinnville, Tennessee, of the missing pilgrims. “We have done as much outreach as we can through the State Department, through the embassy.”

The 80 people are from 19 countries, Crespi said, including 22 from the U.S. Crespi said about 1,000 people in total were taking part in the pilgrimage. The 22 missing Americans were all adults, and included 13 women and nine men, the foundation later said in data it provided to CBS News.

She said the Isha Foundation has done pilgrimages for 21 years.

“In those 21 years, we have never lost a life,” Crespi said. “And so we are shocked by it.” 

U.S. citizen Deepak Dandu said his wife, Sridevi Vejella, was among those missing in Nepal. She was on the pilgrimage with the Isha Foundation to Mount Kailash in Tibet — a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists and others — which he said was a “lifelong dream” for her. 

He told CBS News she was crossing from China into Nepal when the flood hit. The foundation told him she was part of a group that was present at the Gyirong Port immigration complex.

Dandu was getting ready to board a flight to Hyderabad, India, where his son is.

“He is going through a lot, hearing all the news,” Dandu said of his son. “I think he is really upset. I’m trying to go there and be with him.”

“10 or so seconds saved some of us”  

Videos of Wednesday’s disaster showed floodwaters destroying buildings, bridges and vehicles as people ran in front of the stories-high torrent. In the aftermath, broken concrete lay upended in expanses of brown mud that also caked buildings and buried streets.

Customs officer Karbir Gaire was among the survivors in Timure, the closest Nepalese village to the border with China. Gaire reached his office around 8 a.m. Wednesday and was busy working on his computer when he first felt the ground shake.

“Right after the shake, I noticed a black storm coming towards us,” he recalled from Kathmandu, where he was back with family. “We all immediately started running out and within a few seconds, we were climbing uphill on the opposite side of our office building. I think those 10 or so seconds saved some of us.”

Gaire said he didn’t remember exactly how many people were in the office when the disaster struck, but his 15 colleagues were missing. “It was like a Hollywood movie scene. I don’t call it a flood, it was a tsunami.”

He described Timure as a vibrant place filled with government offices, hotels, cafes, banks, primary schools, tea shops and residential buildings, where more than 1,500 people were living.