China, Nepal race to find thousands still missing 12 days after floods

Rescuers in Nepal are racing to reach thousands of people missing in areas near the China border after catastrophic floods as search operations enter their 12th day. The flooding that authorities say was likely caused by a glacial collapse last month has killed at least 1,384 people and left more than 5,500 missing, among them about 800 foreigners, across the two countries. In Nepal, rescuers have retrieved 1,341 bodies and are searching for about 4,996 people, the national disaster agency said on Sunday.

In Tibet, the death toll has risen to 43, with 519 people missing, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported. Four people have been found alive since Friday, three of them in tunnels at hydropower facilities, where the government initially said about 100 people could be alive. Nepal’s Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha said teams at flooded hydropower tunnels were facing multiple challenges.

On the Chinese side, rescuers face deep mud, poor weather and the risk of further landslides that have slowed work in the narrow gorge. Nothing remains of a five-storey customs building at Gyirong, once China’s main land port with Nepal, where workers are digging with shovels, excavators and ground-penetrating radar to recover lost people. The only road into Gyirong reopened on Wednesday, allowing heavy equipment in.

Nepal has issued a request that an untested climate emergency mechanism provide aid. It is asking the United Nations-backed Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage – founded in 2022 to assist developing countries “particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change” – to cover some of the staggering costs of the flood. The United Nations has appealed for $50m to help more than 84,000 people, saying the destruction makes delivering aid an immense challenge.

On Wednesday, Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal pointed to the role of leading greenhouse gas emitters that have a “historical responsibility to compensate vulnerable nations like Nepal”. He added that the government has officially filed a “formal climate compensation claim letter” to international partners. While the exact cause of the glacial collapse remains under investigation, experts say that the frequency and scale of glacier floods have increased as global temperatures have risen.

A United Nations study found that such floods have become nearly five times more frequent since 1950. Manjeet Dhakal, lead adviser to the UN Least Developed Countries Group on Climate Change, says the global community has a responsibility to cover the cost of disasters afflicting developing nations like Nepal, and that the fund should accept the request. Countries hit by such disasters are being forced to divert money set aside for health, education and development, he told Al Jazeera.