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Nepal: Death toll rises, fears grow with lake overflow on Tibetan side
In Nepal, the death toll from Wednesday morning’s Bhotekoshi River flood continues to rise, while the number of people reported missing – combining figures provided by Nepal and Tibet – exceeds 1,400. There are fears that a lake on the Tibetan side, formed by the landslide and estimated to hold two million cubic metres of water, could overflow.
By Roberta Barbi
The scale of the disaster caused by the Bhotekoshi River flood, which on Wednesday brought death and destruction to the Nepal-Tibet border region, is particularly alarming. More than 460 people have been confirmed dead and more than 1,400 are missing—figures that are expected to rise steadily in the coming hours. Authorities say that many foreign tourists are also among those affected; 500 have been evacuated so far.
Power plant tunnel collapses, trapping workers
In Nepal’s Rasuwa District, where more than 800 people have been rescued over the past two days, emergency teams are racing against time to save around 100 workers still trapped inside a collapsed tunnel at the construction site of the Upper Trishuli Hydropower Project. Some 350 workers have already been brought out alive.
Meanwhile, the Red Cross has appealed for $31 million in aid. Nepal’s Foreign Ministry, however, has said the country does not need foreign rescue teams to respond to the disaster.
Fears of further flooding
On the Tibetian side of the border, rescue operations have been suspended in the Gyriong area after a lake formed as a result of the landslide near the where the Chhochen Khola and Purepu Tsangpo rivers meet.
The lake is estimated to hold around two million cubic metres of water and has begun to overflow. There are fears that it could burst its banks in the coming hours, particularly amid forecasts of further rainfall, triggering new floods with potentially devastating consequences in the area around the border crossing, which has already been severely affected.
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