Australian among hundreds missing after Nepal avalanche triggers deadly flash floods
Updated . First published at
At least one Australian is feared to be among hundreds of people missing after an avalanche of ice and rock triggered massive flash floods that swept through parts of Nepal.
At least 75 people have been killed.
Damaged houses stand precariously near the swollen, debris-choked banks of the Trishuli River after flash floods in Nepal’s Nuwakot district. AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha
Officials said 384 tourists, including 291 from countries including Australia, India, the United States, the United Kingdom and Malaysia, were reported missing as a result of the flash flood.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been contacted for comment.
The Bhotekoshi River flooded about 9am on Wednesday (2pm AEST), destroying several villages as well as roads and hydropower projects, officials said.
“We have asked both India and China to help us with the rescue efforts,” Nepali government spokesperson Sasmit Pokharel said.
Dozens of multi-storeyed buildings, trucks, and vans were buried under vast quantities of mud in the district of Nuwakot, one of the worst-affected areas. Officials warned residents in several of Nepal’s districts and asked them to stay away from the banks of the Bhotekoshi, Trishuli, and Narayani rivers.
Nepal tourism board officials said most of the missing were likely tourists from India and the Indian diaspora on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus.
South Korean government officials said their citizens working on building a hydropower plant in Nepal were among those reported missing.
Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry also said its embassy in Kathmandu has received reports from travel agencies that they had lost contact with 11 Malaysians believed to be in the Rasuwa district, which was hit hard by the floods.
The same regions affected by Wednesday’s disaster saw flash floods similar to those in August last year, when a glacial lake in neighbouring Tibet overflowed because of high temperatures in the mountain region. Nine people were killed, and critical infrastructure, including a bridge connecting Nepal and China, was damaged at the time.
Climate experts at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development say an avalanche from a glacier likely caused Wednesday’s flash flood.
The Bhotekoshi River flooded on Wednesday, destroying several villages as well as roads and hydropower projects, officials said. AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha
The Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhotekoshi River, witnessed maximum flooding on Wednesday, they said.
“The Lhende Khola has flooded twice in fourteen months, this time triggered by an ice rock avalanche from a glacier on the Nepal side that blocked the river and released a sudden surge downstream,” said Saswata Sanyal, a disaster risk reduction specialist at the climate research group.
“In a warming Himalaya, early warning is the first line of adaptation,” he added.
The Himalayan region, which spans Nepal and several nearby countries, including India, is especially vulnerable to heavy rains, floods and landslides because it is warming faster than the rest of the world due to human-caused climate change. Research shows that extreme weather events, including heat waves and rains, and melting glaciers, have become more frequent in the region.
Researchers in Kathmandu found earlier this year that glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region are melting at an accelerating rate, with ice loss rates doubling since 2000 primarily due to rising global temperatures and climate change.
- Reported with Associated Press
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