Nepal braces for fresh floods as 3,000 remain missing, 750 dead

On Sunday, as rescue teams worked through the night in Nepal, the scale of the disaster became clearer and more dire. The combined death toll from floods that swept through Nepal and Tibet had reached 750, with Nepal accounting for 734 of the dead and Tibet 16. But the numbers that haunted officials were the ones they could not yet count: more than 3,000 people remained missing, their fates unknown in the wreckage of water and mud.

The catastrophe had begun on Wednesday, when scientists believe a glacier collapsed high in the Himalayas, releasing enormous volumes of water that rushed down river valleys with devastating force. The surge caught workers, villagers, and travelers unprepared. Among the dead were over 100 foreign nationals from more than a dozen countries, according to Chinese state media—a reminder that the disaster had reached across borders and into the lives of people from around the world.

But the crisis was far from over. On Sunday, Nepal's disaster authority issued a fresh flood alert as river levels rose again. Residents around the Bhotekoshi River received warnings on their phones telling them to move to higher ground immediately. Across the border in Tibet, Chinese authorities reported that monitoring drones had detected a new barrier lake forming behind landslide debris near the Gyirong border port. The risk was real: if that barrier gave way, it could unleash another wall of water downstream. Rescue teams working near the port were relocated to safer positions.

The most urgent rescue effort centered on the Trishuli River, where more than 900 hydropower workers had gone missing when the floods struck. Rescuers believed that more than 100 of them were still alive, trapped in tunnels that had filled with mud and debris. On Saturday night, army teams at one site used drills to break through the upper section of a mud-clogged tunnel, then pumped oxygen inside and fed a camera through the opening to search for survivors. The work was grueling and slow. Nepal's prime minister's office acknowledged that teams faced continuous rainfall and treacherous conditions, yet they had worked without rest through the night, pushing forward in what officials called tireless efforts to find and bring out anyone still alive in those dark, flooded passages.

The rescue operation had grown into an international effort. Specialized teams from India and China had joined Nepali rescuers and Nepal's mountain rescue squad—the same unit that assists climbers on Everest and the world's other highest peaks. The expertise was needed. Nepal's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Lok Bahadur Chhetri, outlined the gaps in capacity: the country needed help with tunnel rescue operations, DNA testing to identify the dead, and victim identification services. The United States responded by committing $3.6 million in humanitarian assistance, including emergency food aid for up to 10,000 households affected by the floods. The Red Cross estimated that more than 90,000 people had been touched by the disaster in some way—displaced, injured, or left without shelter and supplies.

As Sunday wore on, the focus remained split between two urgent tasks: finding the missing and preventing the next catastrophe. The barrier lakes forming in Tibet posed an unknown threat. The river levels rising in Nepal meant more danger ahead. Rescuers worked in the rain, drilling into tunnels, searching for signs of life. Families waited for news. And officials watched the sky and the water, knowing that the disaster was not yet finished with them.