Latest: More than 1,000 people missing as death toll rises to 165 after flash flood in Nepal and Tibet

Officials say hundreds of foreign nationals from Ireland, India, the US, UK, Australia, Malaysia and Ukraine are among those missing. 

More than 1,000 people including almost 800 foreigners are missing across Nepal and Tibet, authorities say, after a wall of mud and rock collapsed into a Himalayan river sending catastrophic flash floods through towns and valleys.

Rescuers in Nepal used helicopters to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands ⁠cut off after Wednesday’s morning’s disaster.

Police said they expected the death toll to rise beyond 165 as more bodies were recovered.

Almost 500 foreigners were among 826 people missing in Nepal, police and tourism ⁠officials said, including at least two Irish nationals. 

Among the missing tourists from more than two dozen countries, 177 were from India, 63 from the US, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 25 from Canada.

The count of missing in Tibet’s Gyirong county was 558, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday, including 260 foreign nationals. China said the death toll stayed at three.

Verified videos showed crushing ⁠masses of water and debris sweeping away dozens of people at a border crossing in Gyirong. Homes, roads and power projects were washed away in Nepal as the flows travelled downstream.

More than 5,000 Nepalese army and police rescue personnel joined the rescue effort that retrieved 125 people on Thursday, including 20 foreigners, an army spokesperson said.

Nepalese prime minister Balendra Shah left by road for Bidur in one of the worst affected districts of Nuwakot to assess the flood situation, his office said on social media.

The US Geological Survey said a glacial collapse caused seismic activity and catastrophic impacts in Nepal and Tibet. 

Seismic activity initially reported as an earthquake “was instead a glacial collapse and debris flow” that “caused subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream”, the agency said on Thursday.

Chinese authorities have identified risks from a still-dammed lake located in Gyirong, upstream from the mudslide and flood-stricken Tibet-Nepal border crossing, that could significantly complicate rescue efforts in the mountainous site, CCTV reported on Thursday.

Many of the victims were making a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar, a high-altitude site in Tibet revered by Hindus and Buddhists among others.

The US State Department said it was sending a disaster response adviser and providing assistance of $500,000.

Kalpana Malla, from Nepal’s Nuwakot district, told BBC News: “My family members were swept away by the flood in front of my eyes.” She said her father, mother, sister and her sister’s children were all swept away by the floods. She added:

They could not escape the flood, there was no chance at all.

This flood took everything, but my son and I climbed the rooftop of a house and survived, but couldn’t explain how.

Rajan Shrestha, the mayor of Bidur municipality, told the Times that he had “never seen such a massive flood in my life” and estimated about 400 people may have been swept away. He added:

And it came so fast. We could not evacuate all the people from the main town.” Tour operator Alpine Eco Trek said a 13-year-old girl was among the missing British nationals, as well as two Irish citizens, PA Media reported.

Among the missing British nationals were three men aged 65, 64, and 52, and seven women aged 44, 47, 51, 60, 63, 63, and 65, according to travel logs obtained by the news agency.

Prime minister Andy Burnham said the government would do “everything we can” to support British nationals in Nepal after the floods.

- The Guardian