Rescue operations entered their fourth day near the Nepal-China border on Saturday, with at least 2,478 people still untraced after devastating flash floods buried homes and swept away lives earlier this week. Satellite images captured before and after the disaster show the sheer scale of the destruction along the border.
An image from April 19, 2024, shared by news agency AFP, shows the Gyirong Port-Rasuwagadhi border crossing intact, with several buildings, a bridge, roads and other infrastructure clustered along the river amid the forested Himalayan slopes. Track Nepal floods live updates.
The contrast is stark in an image taken on August 27. Just a day after the disaster, almost the entire complex has disappeared.
Deep Dive
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In the second image, the river channel appears to have widened substantially, while huge stretches of mud and debris cover areas where buildings and roads once stood. Parts of the surrounding slopes have also been stripped bare, leaving behind large scars and patches of exposed earth.
‘Nothing but ruins’
The satellite images offer a bird’s-eye view of the devastation that rescuers encountered when they finally reached the area on Friday.
{{/usCountry}}The satellite images offer a bird’s-eye view of the devastation that rescuers encountered when they finally reached the area on Friday.
{{/usCountry}}A 21-member Chinese rescue team, accompanied by a search-and-rescue dog, crossed mountains and valleys and used ropes to navigate forests and cliffs after roads leading to the border complex were destroyed.
“There was no road... it was all virgin forest and sheer cliffs,” rescue worker Zou Mingqi was quotes as saying by news agency Reuters. When the team reached the complex, he said, “as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but ruins.” he added.
579 killed in Nepal, 1,924 still missing
Nepal's disaster authority said Friday that the number of missing people had nearly doubled to 1,924. In Tibet's Gyirong County, at least 558 people were reported missing, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV cited by Reuters.
At least 540 foreigners are among those missing in the disaster, many of them Hindu pilgrims from India.
A statement from India's ministry of external affairs said that at least 320 Indians are still missing in Nepal, while another 400 remain stranded in Tibet.
Fresh flood threat halts rescue operations
Even as rescuers reached the devastated border crossing, the threat of more flooding forced another pause in operations on Friday.
A lake formed by the flooding began overflowing into the Lhende Khola and Trishuli rivers, triggering panic and warnings from authorities in Nepal. Rescue operations were suspended for around three hours, while Chinese rescue personnel and vehicles also withdrew from the area.
The operations resumed after the immediate threat eased, with Nepali officials continuing to hope that survivors could still be found.
More than 90,000 people are estimated to have been affected by the disaster, according to the Red Cross.
For the unversed, a glacier collapse on Wednesday unleashed a torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris through Himalayan river systems, killing at least 579 people in Nepal and seven in China's Tibet.
(With agency inputs)