A Glacier Collapsed on the Nepal-Tibet Border. Police Now Count 360 Dead and More Than 1,400 Missing.
The U.S. State Department says about 90 Americans may be caught up in the disaster. Nepal's tourism board says 65 of them are still unaccounted for two days after the wall of water came through.
Rescue crews spent Thursday searching the steep valleys along the Nepal-China border for hundreds of people swept away by a torrent of water and mud that tore through Himalayan communities a day earlier. Nepal Police put the toll at at least 360 dead and more than 1,400 missing across Nepal and Tibet, an autonomous region of China. The U.S. State Department said it was aware of roughly 90 Americans who may have been affected, and that three had been rescued safely. It said it was not yet aware of any American deaths.
The disaster began with a collapse, not a quake. The U.S. Geological Survey first logged what it read as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake early Wednesday about 41 miles north of Kathmandu. It later revised the analysis: the seismic signal was a magnitude 5.2 glacial collapse, a mass of ice and rock letting go and sending debris racing downstream. What reached the villages below was described by survivors as water the color of wet cement, moving fast enough to take out bridges, roads, houses and hydropower infrastructure.
Nepal's National Emergency Operation Center said the missing included 113 Nepali tourists, 85 army and police personnel, and 161 residents, with the worst damage concentrated in the Nuwakot and Rasuwa districts. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported separately that 558 people were missing on the Tibetan side, 260 of them foreigners, and that a mudslide near the Gyirong Port border crossing had left mud averaging more than five feet deep, with some road sections buried under six feet. CCTV said a barrier lake had formed near the port, raising the risk of a second surge.
Hikmat Singh Ayer, CEO and senior director of the Nepal Tourism Board, told CBS News that at least 65 Americans were among the missing foreign nationals — nearly double the figure reported the day before. The board later said 27 foreign nationals had been pulled out of the Rasuwa flood zone, including two U.S. nationals, a man and a woman in their 50s. Many of the missing foreigners were pilgrims. Leslie Crespi, a community liaison for the Isha Foundation, said about 80 people from its Mount Kailash pilgrimage were unaccounted for, drawn from 19 countries and including 22 Americans — 13 women and nine men. About 1,000 people were on the pilgrimage in total. "In those 21 years, we have never lost a life," Crespi said of the group's history of running the trip. "And so we are shocked by it."
Among the missing is Venus Rajnikant Patel, 45, an Indian-born U.S. citizen who had recently moved from St. Louis to Cincinnati. His brother Dennis said Patel called the family a few hours before the flood, showing them his hotel room on the Nepalese side of the border and talking about how excited he was to cross into Tibet. He had spent two years planning the trip. Deepak Dandu said his wife, Sridevi Vejella, had just finished the Kailash pilgrimage — a lifelong ambition, he said — and was crossing from China into Nepal at the Gyirong Port immigration complex when the flood hit.
The Nepalese army rescued more than 100 people by helicopter on Thursday, including at least eight foreign nationals airlifted to Kathmandu, army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet said. Crews also evacuated people trapped inside facilities tied to the Trishuli hydropower project. Bodies were recovered about 62 miles downstream in the Chitwan district. "When I reached Dhunge bazaar, in half an hour, the flood came and damaged all the market," resident Shoyam Rajbhandari said. "People were preparing to go to office then. How many people are missing or dead, we don't know."
Speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, President Trump said U.S. officials had been in contact with Nepalese leaders and offered "anything they want," estimating 50 or 60 Americans were in the area while acknowledging a full accounting was not complete. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the department "stands ready to support the government of Nepal with needed humanitarian assistance." The department is sending an adviser to the region and issued a $500,000 grant to Catholic Relief Services. Americans needing help have been directed to +1-202-501-4444; families searching for relatives can call +1-888-407-4747. The Dalai Lama said Thursday he was praying for the dead and offered condolences "to the bereaved and to all those affected by this tragedy."
Originally reported by CBS News.