Nepal Floods: 95 Dead, 384 Tourists Missing
A flash flood on Nepal's Bhote Koshi River swept away villages and roads on Wednesday morning. By evening, 95 were dead and 384 tourists, including hundreds of foreigners, were missing.
Nepal on Wednesday suffered the deadliest natural disaster recorded anywhere in the world that day, worse than the wildfires in the American state of Nevada and worse than the morning earthquake in Tokyo, both of which were already fading into the news cycle. A flash flood on the Bhote Koshi River, in the north of the country along the border with Tibet, had by evening claimed at least 95 lives and left 384 tourists unaccounted for, among them citizens of India, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and South Korea. No Serbian nationals appear on the lists of missing by nationality, but the international response, from an offer of help by India’s prime minister to a joint statement from the European Union and six other countries, shows a crisis that immediately drew the kind of multilateral framework Brussels usually reserves for disasters far closer to its own neighborhood.
In brief
- The Bhote Koshi River burst its banks around nine in the morning on Wednesday, in Rasuwa district north of Kathmandu
- At least 95 people are dead, 384 tourists and at least 28 police officers are missing
- Six hydropower plants were damaged, wiping out 430 megawatts of generating capacity
- India and China have offered help, and Prime Minister Balen Shah is running the crisis response from Kathmandu
The river burst its banks around nine on Wednesday morning in Rasuwa district north of Kathmandu, sweeping away settlements, roads and hydropower plants along the valley. “So far, 95 deaths have been reported,” Nepal police spokesman Abi Narayan Kafle told AFP, adding that at least 28 police officers were among the missing. The toll climbed through the day, from an initial 72 to at least 95 dead, while authorities list 384 tourists as missing. Of those, an initial official count put 291 as foreign nationals, while a later government count put the figure at 341 foreigners, including 142 Indians, 17 Malaysians, 12 Britons, eight South Koreans, four South Africans, one Australian and one Dutch national.
What caused the flood?
Officials disagree on the cause. Experts at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) say an ice and rock avalanche from a glacier blocked a tributary of the Lende Khola and released a sudden surge downstream.
“This was an ice and rock avalanche from a glacier on the Nepali side that blocked the river and released a sudden wave downstream,” Sasvata Sanjal, a disaster risk reduction expert at ICIMOD, told Al Jazeera.
Early Wednesday, about 100 kilometers north of Kathmandu near the Tibetan border, a magnitude 4.4 earthquake was also recorded. Nepal’s Foreign Minister Sisir Kanal, however, told CBS News that it was that earthquake which triggered the landslide that blocked the river, an explanation that differs from the one offered by ICIMOD’s scientists.
Why couldn’t helicopters land?
The hardest hit towns, Syaphru Besi and Timure in Rasuwa district, stayed out of reach of air rescue for days, not because of narrow gorges as early reports suggested, but because water levels were too high for helicopters to land. The Trishuli and Narayani rivers also flooded, and the neighboring districts of Nuwakot and Dhading were hit as well, where multistory buildings, trucks and vans were left buried in mud.
Six hydropower plants and transmission facilities belonging to the Nepal Electricity Authority were damaged, and 430 megawatts of generating capacity were wiped out, the utility said. Among the missing are eight South Korean workers who had been contracted to build a hydropower plant, while ten more are stranded at the site. Seoul has set up a task force to send rescuers to Nepal. Across the border, in Tibet’s Gyirong county, Chinese authorities launched their own search operation, while landslides in the Shigatse region cut roads, communications and power supplies.
India was first to offer help. “India stands ready to provide all possible humanitarian assistance to Nepal,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on social media, after speaking with his Nepali counterpart. China’s President Xi Jinping called for stepped up efforts from Beijing. The European Union joined a statement with Australia, the United Kingdom, Finland, France, Norway and Switzerland expressing solidarity with those affected and calling for local authorities’ guidance to be followed.
Prime Minister Balen Shah has been chairing crisis meetings in Kathmandu. “Work on taking the necessary steps has begun, in coordination with the medical team, scouts and the Red Cross,” Shah wrote in a social media post. Government spokesman Sasmit Pokharel specified where the assistance was coming from: “We have asked both India and China to help us in the rescue efforts.”
The same area went through a similar ordeal in August 2025, when a flash flood on the Bhote Koshi killed nine people and destroyed the Friendship Bridge linking Nepal and China. Nepali authorities warned then, as they are warning now, about the need for early warning systems for people living in mountain gorges, precisely the measure Sanjal singles out as key protection in a region that, according to climate researchers, is warming faster than the global average.
A final toll has not yet been established. Nepali authorities say the number of missing will keep changing in the coming days as rescue teams reach cut off parts of Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading, while search operations also continue on the Tibetan side of the border, where China’s state news agency Xinhua has said further casualty figures are expected.
