New Delhi: The death toll from the flash flood that struck Nepal’s Rasuwa district on the morning of 26 August could eventually cross 10,000, according to preliminary assessments from sources in Nepal, who say more than 5,000 people remain unaccounted for as rescue teams struggle to reach devastated settlements. While around 1,000 bodies have officially been recovered, sources say this does not reflect the full scale of the disaster, since several settlements along the flood’s path have been destroyed and communications remain disrupted.
The uncertainty is particularly stark among children. Around 350 students from four schools in Uttargaya Rural Municipality, a mountainous area of Rasuwa district near the Nepal-China border and along the river corridor affected by the flood, remain out of contact. At Nilkanth Secondary School, roughly 200 of its 550 students are unaccounted for. Three other schools, Trinity, Ramchandra Residential and Uttargaya Public School, were completely destroyed, with about 150 more students from the three institutions reported missing. More than 60 students have already been identified as having lost their parents, a number sources expect to grow.
Settlements identified as suffering extensive destruction include Mailung, Pahire Besi, Khalte, Kaidel Danda, Bogati and Betrawati in Rasuwa district, along the affected river corridor downstream of the Nepal-China border. In some locations, destruction has been so extensive that authorities cannot establish how many people were present when the flood struck. Sources said a preliminary assessment, based on the population of these settlements and the number of people still unaccounted for, points to a possible toll of at least 10,000. They stressed that this is not an official figure and that the true number will become clearer only as rescue operations expand.
The disaster’s downstream reach is now offering another indication of its scale. Sources told The Sunday Guardian that bodies are being seen at the Dhanha-Ratwal Ghat bridge, locally known as Dhanha Pul or Gautam Buddha Setu, in West Champaran, Bihar, more than 350 km downstream by the river route from the area where the flood entered Nepal. The river system runs through the Lhende Khola, Bhote Koshi, Trishuli and Narayani before the Narayani becomes the Gandak in India.
The disaster began in the upper Lhende Khola area of Rasuwa, near the Nepal-China border, where an ice-rock and debris surge entered the river system before rushing downstream through the Lhende Khola and Bhote Koshi. The flood then travelled through the Trishuli and Narayani before eventually entering India as the Gandak.
Villagers along the river have reported seeing bodies and body parts, including legs, limbs and heads, being carried downstream. In many cases, villagers have no means to retrieve or preserve the remains and the bodies continue to be carried away by the current. Sources said this means that some victims may never be recovered or identified. The sighting of separate body parts also makes it difficult to establish whether different remains belong to the same victim, complicating any attempt to determine the actual number of people who have died.
The absence of a system capable of intercepting and recovering every body being carried downstream means the eventual death toll cannot simply be calculated by counting recovered bodies. Bodies that travel farther downstream can also decompose, further reducing the possibility of identification.
Nepal is also facing a shortage of facilities to preserve recovered bodies. Sources told The Sunday Guardian that the country urgently needs additional freezer facilities. In the absence of sufficient capacity, officials are placing bodies in plastic bags and temporarily burying them so they can later be exhumed for DNA sampling and identification.
India has deployed a specialised forensic team to Nepal to assist with DNA analysis and identification of victims. The team arrived in Kathmandu with India’s fourth relief flight and is working with Nepali counterparts on the identification of recovered remains. India was among the first countries to respond to the disaster and has continued providing rescue personnel, equipment and technical assistance.
Nepal is now actively seeking additional foreign rescue teams, technical personnel and heavy equipment, including excavators, to reach areas buried under mud and debris. Sources said officials were initially cautious about seeking extensive foreign assistance because they were themselves not fully aware of how treacherous the terrain was in the area where the flood first entered Nepal. There were concerns that rescuers unfamiliar with the terrain could themselves become trapped or lose their lives. That position changed as the scale of the destruction became clearer.
The disaster also caused extensive damage on the Chinese side of the border in the Gyirong area of Tibet. Sources familiar with the situation said the Chinese side had suffered considerable damage, including fatalities, before the flood’s downstream flow reached the Nepal side. They said the scale of the damage could be greater than indicated by the publicly released Chinese casualty figures, although this cannot currently be independently established.
China has officially reported 16 deaths and 546 people missing in the affected area. Beijing has nevertheless mounted a large-scale rescue operation, deploying more than 2,000 personnel, hundreds of vehicles and thousands of pieces of rescue equipment. Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing visited the affected area to oversee rescue and relief operations.
The scale of the Chinese mobilisation has led sources in Nepal to question whether the publicly released casualty figures fully reflect the extent of the damage. There is, however, no independent evidence at present to establish that China is deliberately understating the casualty figures.
With rescue teams still working to reach isolated areas, bodies continuing to travel downstream and hundreds of children still unaccounted for, Nepal’s official death toll remains provisional. The final count will depend not only on bodies recovered and identified, but also on authorities’ ability to reconstruct the population of destroyed settlements and account for people whose remains may never be found.
