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Associated Press

Rescuers pulled out survivors caked in dark brown mud and helicopters lifted stranded people to safety, as Nepal and China raced to respond to catastrophic flash floods that killed 676 people and left nearly 3,000 missing.
The rescue efforts included a team that rappelled into a severely damaged checkpoint area on the Chinese side of the border between the two countries.
Rescuers were on high alert for more flooding from a new lake that formed high up in the Himalayan mountains after the initial floods on Wednesday.
Experts warned that the lake, created after a glacier collapse that triggered the floods, was starting to overflow.
Nepal’s army was deployed to help rescue more than 100 people believed trapped inside a tunnel at a hydropower plant located in the country’s worst-hit district.
Like elsewhere in the disaster zone, their work was complicated by thick layers of mud that covered the site.

The rappelling rescue team descended into the once-bustling border-crossing area from wooded mountain slopes, the state broadcaster China Central Television said.
“As far as I can see, it’s nothing but debris,” rescue official Zou Mingqi told state media. The area where travellers went through border control to enter or leave China has been flattened to a muddy area, according to satellite images.
The floods have killed 579 in Nepal, the country’s disaster-management authority said Friday. Nepali police later put the number of deaths at 553.
There was little information on survivors on the Chinese side, where the death toll rose to seven on Friday as state media showed evacuations of villages and leaders’ efforts to direct the relief response.
More than 3,700 people have been rescued in Nepal so far. Meanwhile, the number of people who were unaccounted for in the country nearly doubled to 1,924 as more local residents were added to the tally.
China’s state media said 554 people were missing on the Chinese side. Hundreds of the missing are foreigners in the area to work, trek or make a pilgrimage to a sacred peak.


In other developments, Nepal on Friday reversed an earlier decision and said it would allow foreign teams and experts to help with rescue efforts, apparently under pressure from other countries, especially those whose citizens are unaccounted for, a leading English-language newspaper, The Kathmandu Post, reported.
Nepali police issued a fresh alert on Friday after receiving information that a dam on the Tibet side had burst. Security personnel and rescue and relief workers were told to stay on high alert and move to a safe location if necessary.
It was unclear if the dam bursting was related to flooding concerns over the lake that formed after the initial flash floods.
Chinese broadcaster CCTV said the newly formed lake, located more than 10km (six miles) from Gyirong Port, the hard-hit border crossing with Nepal, sits at an elevation of 2,950 metres (9,680 feet).
Nepali and Chinese authorities earlier warned of more flooding from the lake, which was already overflowing.
Rescuers heading to the disaster zone were ordered to stop temporarily on Friday due to concern the lake would release more water and debris, and people in potentially affected areas were urged to move to safer ground.
Monitoring data from the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources later showed that the lake had dwindled in size. The water level dropped by 10 metres (32 feet) from the high point on Thursday morning, the state broadcaster said.
Some 680 rescuers eventually reached the Gyirong area by foot and via rafts. Some were dropped down from drones flown to the area, CCTV footage showed. “Anyone, anyone?” rescuers yelled, according to footage by the broadcaster.
It was not immediately known how many people were at the border checkpoint building when the floods hit.
In Nepal’s Rasuwa district, Nepali army rescuers struggled to help more than 100 people believed to be trapped by thick mud in a tunnel that’s part of the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project. The army said it had rescued 350 people from the tunnel so far.
Video from the scene showed rescuers helping a man covered in mud out of the tunnel by pulling and pushing.
“It is complicated to find the entry and exit points of the tunnel because everything has been covered by mud,” Army spokesman Brigadier General Raja Ram Basnet said.
Nepal’s disaster-management authority said 3,253 people had been airlifted by helicopter from the disaster area.

The search-and-rescue efforts have been supported by an outpouring of financial support from neighbouring countries, including small, poorer countries like Sri Lanka, said Kanni Wignaraja, the United Nations development agency’s regional director for Asia and the Pacific.
“Sri Lanka has its own huge fiscal problems, but it has just sent US$1 million immediately to the Nepal government,” Wignaraja said.
Scientists who studied satellite images said bedrock underneath a glacier high in the Himalayan region had collapsed, taking part of the glacier with it. The rockfall was so extreme that it registered as magnitude 5.2.
The rocks and melted water then swelled the rivers in the valleys below, causing a torrent of water that swept buildings, bridges and earth downstream in Tibet and Nepal.
Customs officer Karbir Gaire was among some of the survivors in Timure, the closest Nepalese village to the border with China, where some 1,500 people had lived.
Gaire reached his office around 8am on Wednesday and was working on his computer when he first felt the ground shake.
“Right after the shake, I noticed a black storm coming towards us,” he recalled from Kathmandu, where he is back with family.
“We all immediately started running out, and within a few seconds, we were climbing uphill on the opposite side of our office building. I think those 10 or so seconds saved some of us.”
Fifteen of Gaire’s colleagues are missing. “It was like a Hollywood movie scene. I don’t call it a flood. It was a tsunami.”

Nepal’s tourism board has said that among the missing are more than 500 foreigners.
Some of the missing may have been on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists and others.
Indian spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev, also known as Sadhguru, said in a social media post that 77 people returning from Mount Kailash with groups organised by his Isha Foundation were at the immigration centre in Gyirong when the flooding struck.
Vishnuram Ramaswamy, who works at a private company in the southern Indian city of Puducherry, said that he spoke to his mother and two sisters who were on that pilgrimage Wednesday morning.
It was a highly anticipated trip, something his mother had always wanted to do, he said.
“This was the last we spoke to them,” he said. “They have been unreachable since.”


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China-Nepal floods: rescuers pull out survivors caked in mud as toll climbs

Rescuers transport an elderly woman rescued from a Devighat old age home following a flash flood in Trishuli Bazar, Nuwakot district, Nepal. Photo: EPA

Chinese People’s Armed Police officers clear debris near Gyirong Port on Friday. Photo: China Daily via Reuters

People look at photographs of people killed in flash floods displayed outside a government hospital to help relatives identify the victims in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Friday. Photo: AP

People react after being rescued by a Nepal Army helicopter on Friday in Hatiguada village, Nuwakot district, Nepal. Photo: EPA

A rescuer assists a resident through heavy mud in Trishuli, Nepal. Photo: Getty Images/TNS

Rescuers use an excavator to transport victims and survivors along the streets submerged by mud in Devghat in Nepal’s Nuwakot district. Photo: AFP

A flash flood survivor is taken to a medical camp in the Nuwakot district of Nepal on Friday. Photo: AP

Nepal army races to rescue 100 trapped in hydropower tunnel after flash floods

Army personnel escort a woman after her rescue from a flash flood site in Nepal’s Nuwakot district on Friday. Photo: AFP

A helicopter rescue crew ferries victims in Trishuli, Nepal on Thursday. Photo: Reuters

This screen grab shows the Nepali army rescuing a person trapped inside a tunnel at a hydropower project following a flash flood in Nepal’s Rasuwa district. Photo: AFP/Prime Minister Secretariat, Nepal

How the Nepal flash flood unleashed a wave of anti-China misinformation

Satellite analysis indicates that the disaster started with a glacier collapse in Nepal. Photo: dpa

Chinese rescuers reach checkpoint destroyed by deadly flash floods along Nepal border

The first rescue teams reached the border crossing in Gyirong. Photo: CCTV

A staff member checks the phone numbers of evacuees in Jifu, a village in Tibet. Photo: Xinhua

Rescue teams battle their way through challenging conditions. Photo: Reuters

In Gyirong county, a medical worker gives a girl a check-up on Thursday after the disaster. Photo: Xinhua

China-Nepal floods: debris lake the size of 1,000 Olympic pools in breach danger

A barrier lake has formed after the debris flow from Wednesday’s mudslide in Nepal blocked a river upstream from Gyirong Port on the Chinese side of the border. Photo: Xinhua

A composite of satellite images showing the scale of the disaster at Gyirong Port. The image on the left was taken on Wednesday while the one on the right is the same location in January. Photo: Xinhua

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Nepal has reversed an earlier decision and says it will allow foreign teams and experts to help with rescue efforts


Nepal has reversed an earlier decision and says it will allow foreign teams and experts to help with rescue efforts.


China-Nepal floods: rescuers pull out survivors caked in mud as toll climbs

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Nepal has reversed an earlier decision and says it will allow foreign teams and experts to help with rescue efforts

Nepal has reversed an earlier decision and says it will allow foreign teams and experts to help with rescue efforts