Nepal and China resumed rescue operations in the flood-hit Himalayas on Friday, after a brief suspension caused by fears that an overflowing glacial lake could trigger a second wave of devastation. Officials on both sides of the border say the risk has now been assessed as manageable.
Wednesday's catastrophic flood, triggered by a glacier collapse, has killed 547 people in Nepal and five in China's Tibet region. Almost 1,000 more remain missing across both countries. A huge torrent of rock, ice, mud, and debris tore through Himalayan river systems after the collapse, destroying power stations, roads, and bridges along a route linking Kathmandu with Lhasa, a corridor popular with trekkers and pilgrims.
The collapse also formed a new lake, where water kept collecting and rising in the days after the disaster. By Friday, the reservoir had swelled past 2.5 million cubic meters, up from an estimated 1.5 to 2 million cubic meters a day earlier, before spilling into the Lhende Khola river and then into the Trishuli.
That rise briefly halted rescue efforts. Nepal's army spokesperson, Raja Ram Basnet, told Reuters the water level had only climbed by around two feet, roughly 0.6 meters, before crews resumed work. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that by noon Friday, rescue operations for the Gyirong mudslide disaster had "quickly resumed and were stepped up" once the risk from the upstream dammed lake was deemed manageable.
Of those still missing, at least 540 are foreign nationals, many of them Hindu pilgrims from India traveling toward Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar in Tibet, both considered sacred sites. The Red Cross estimates more than 90,000 people have been affected overall, and says relief trucks remain blocked in parts of the region after the barrier lake broke its banks.
Despite offers of international assistance, Nepal has declined foreign help for search and rescue, choosing to concentrate on local efforts to locate survivors and recover the dead. Families of the missing have been gathering for information as the search continues.
In Beijing, China's Politburo met Friday to direct the country's rescue response, according to state media. The meeting, chaired by President Xi Jinping, called on authorities to "scientifically formulate search-and-rescue plans" and make every effort to find missing people, both Chinese and foreign. It also pushed for stronger monitoring of glacier lakes, landslide risks, and other barrier lakes going forward, along with emergency aid to affected communities in Nepal and closer international disaster cooperation. China's Premier Li Qiang traveled to the disaster zone in Gyirong on Thursday, a visit state media framed as a sign Beijing is treating the disaster as a top national priority.
