Nepal flash flood rescue efforts paused amid fears of further flooding

Kathmandu, Nepal — Authorities temporary stopped rescue efforts Friday due to fears that a newly formed, overflowing lake could trigger further flooding in areas devastated by a catastrophic flash flood along the Himalayan border between Nepal and China.

Rescuers had been working through mud and debris, looking for hundreds of people still missing as the disaster’s death toll rose.

Nepal police said Friday morning that the country’s death toll had risen to 469 from 390 a day earlier, as rescuers recover more bodies amid the debris. China on Friday updated its report of just three deaths in Tibet, saying the toll there had risen to five. Together, the two countries have said more than 1,500 people are missing.

Nepali and Chinese authorities warned of further flooding because a lake that formed upstream behind a dam made up of immense piles of debris from Wednesday’s disaster was overflowing. They urged people in potentially affected areas to move to safer ground.

China’s Ministry of Water Resources said Thursday that the lake held around 70 million cubic feet of water and was expected to receive another 106 million cubic feet over the next three days.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported Friday morning that the lake’s barrier was more than six miles from Gyirong Port, the border crossing with Nepal that was engulfed by mud and floodwater.

CCTV said the lake was at an elevation of 9,680 feet, some 3,280 feet above Gyirong Port.

The Nepal Army said a team was sent to the border point to inspect the Bhotekoshi River amid the potential of more floods.

Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said Friday that 3,253 people had been airlifted by helicopter from the country’s disaster area.

Flood survivors, including injured people, were taken to Kathmandu and other locations. Foreigners from multiple countries were among the missing, many of them trekkers and pilgrims.

Hikmat Singh Ayer, CEO and senior director of the Nepal Tourism Board, told CBS News’ Arshad R. Zargar on Thursday that at least 65 Americans were among the missing foreign nationals in the small Himalayan nation, almost doubling the number of U.S. nationals reported missing the previous day.

In a subsequent update, the tourism board said 27 foreign nationals had been rescued from the flood zone in the Rasuwa district, including two U.S. nationals identified as a man and woman in their 50s.  

A U.S. State Department spokesperson told CBS News on Thursday that the agency was aware of about 90 Americans who may be impacted by the floods, and it was continuing to closely track the situation. The department said Thursday that three U.S. citizens had been safely rescued, and the spokesperson said the agency wasn’t aware of any U.S. deaths. 

Nepali Army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet told The Associated Press a team had been deployed Friday to the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project near the Nepal-China border following reports that people were trapped inside a tunnel.

“It is complicated to find the entry and exit points of the tunnel because everything has been covered by mud,” Basnet said. “Our first priority is rescuing the stranded people.”

Videos of the disaster showed floodwaters destroying buildings, bridges and vehicles as people ran in front of the stories-high torrent. In the aftermath, broken concrete lay upended in expanses of brown mud that also caked buildings and buried streets.

Customs officer Karbir Gaire is among some of the survivors in Timure, the closest Nepalese village to the border with China.

Gaire reached his office around 8 a.m. on Wednesday and was busy 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.”

Gaire doesn’t remember exactly how many people were in the office when the disaster struck, but his 15 colleagues have gone missing. “It was like a Hollywood movie scene. I don’t call it a flood, it was a tsunami.”

He described Timure as a vibrant place filled with government offices, hotels, cafes, banks, primary schools, tea shops and residential buildings, where more than 1,500 people were living.

President Trump said the flooding was terrible to see, describing how “strong, well-built buildings were wiped out like they were toothpicks.”

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said the U.S. spoke with Nepalese leaders and offered to provide “anything they want.”

Leslie Crespi, a community liaison for the Isha Foundation, a volunteer-run group that promotes well-being founded by Indian spiritual leader Sadhguru Vasudev, told CBS News in an interview that about 80 people who were taking part in its pilgrimage in the region were missing.

“At this point we are awaiting word,” Crespi said in a phone interview from McMinnville, Tennessee, of the missing pilgrims. “We have done as much outreach as we can through the State Department, through the embassy.”

The 80 people are from 19 countries, Crespi said, including 22 from the U.S. Crespi said about 1,000 people in total were taking part in the pilgrimage. The 22 missing Americans were all adults, and included 13 women and nine men, the foundation later said in data it provided to CBS News.

She said the Isha Foundation has done pilgrimages for 21 years.

“In those 21 years, we have never lost a life,” Crespi said. “And so we are shocked by it.” 

U.S. citizen Deepak Dandu said his wife, Sridevi Vejella, is among those missing in Nepal. She had just finished a pilgrimage with the Isha Foundation to Mount Kailash in Tibet — a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists and others — which he said was a “lifelong dream” for her, and was crossing from China into Nepal when the flood hit, he told CBS News. He said the foundation told him that she was part of a group that were present at the Gyirong Port immigration complex.

Dandu was getting ready to board a flight to Hyderabad, India, where his son is. 

“He is going through a lot, hearing all the news,” Dandu said of his son. “I think he is really upset. I’m trying to go there and be with him.”

One of the missing was 45-year-old Venus Rajnikant Patel, an Indian-born U.S. citizen who recently moved from St. Louis to Cincinnati to help his family. He was on a guided tour to Mount Kailash. 

Patel’s brother, Dennis, said Venus called him and their parents a few hours before the floods, 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 been planning the pilgrimage for two years, his brother said.

Patel’s friend Jolene Gosha said she and her friends knew Patel was in Nepal and were devastated when they realized his hotel was right along the border where the floods swept through.

“We’re just hoping, hoping that by some chance he was able to climb his way out of it,” Gosha said. “I don’t want to give myself false hope because I know the reality is that he’s probably not with us.” 

Scientists who’ve studied satellite images said bedrock underneath a glacier high in the Himalayan region collapsed, taking part of the glacier with it. The rocks and melted water swelled the rivers in the valleys below, causing a torrent of water that swept buildings, bridges and earth downstream.