Nepal disaster: Death toll surpasses 900, missing near 4,500

Rescuers struggled on Monday through mud and debris for a sixth day, as the number of missing people soared to nearly 4,500 since tsunami-like glacial floods roared down from the China-Nepal border, creating an “unimaginable” disaster.

The latest confirmed death toll surged above 900, with unidentified bodies buried in mass graves after DNA sampling.

The huge wave of freezing water, rocks and debris that smashed into villages and towns on Wednesday killed at least 939 people in Nepal and in Tibet, in China, with at least 17 bodies also pulled from rivers downstream in India.

Shibu Giri, a hydropower worker in Rasuwa, counts himself lucky to be alive.

A helicopter crew “tried to rescue me three times, but my body was stuck in the mud, up to my waist”, the 44-year-old Nepali told AFP.

“I asked them to throw water and food,” said Giri, who was eventually rescued and taken to hospital.

Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah on Sunday called the disaster “unimaginable and heartbreaking”.

In Chitwan district, army personnel climbed out of rubber dinghies and carried dead victims in blue body bags up a river bank, placing them in a row along a dirt road.

Rescue teams are in a race against time in treacherous conditions to free around 100 hydropower workers believed trapped in multiple tunnels -- digging, drilling and blasting through debris.

So far, three bodies have been pulled from two tunnels, and the teams have found routes blocked with mud.

An Indian army officer deployed as part of a specialised tunnel rescue team said rescuers were digging through “sludge”. He told AFP he was “still hopeful” there were survivors inside.

Nepal’s Home Affairs Ministry says 20,600 personnel have been mobilised, and that more than 3,100 people have been rescued from the disaster zone.

Army personnel were seen unloading bodies of victims from helicopters in Nepal’s Nuwakot and Rasuwa districts on Monday.

Amid the horror, there has been some hope; a six-year-old pulled out of the mud Friday was reunited with her parents after police found her crying for her mother.

“Her body was trapped in mud, but her head was outside,” Nepali Armed Police spokesman Netra Bahadur Karki told AFP.

“She is out of danger and recovering at a hospital.”

The disaster was sparked by a glacial collapse, the US Geological Survey said.

Climate change is causing glaciers to melt worldwide, raising the risk of such disasters.

“The people of Nepal are one of the major victims of the changing climate and its impact,” Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said.

Scientists say the Himalayas, the world’s highest mountain range, are melting faster as global temperatures rise.

Aid needs are enormous after entire communities were swept away.

“This is an unfolding disaster,” UN children’s fund official Abiodun Banire told AFP, saying the needs of the tens of thousands impacted were vast.

Roads have been wiped out, power plants destroyed and dozens of bridges smashed.

“There are too many challenges,” said police officer E. Hawadi in badly affected Nuwakot district.

With mortuaries overflowing, Nepal has begun burying some of the hundreds of bodies recovered -- after taking DNA samples so families can later retrieve them.

In Chitwan district, mourning relatives cremated some of the dead, while in riverside villages like Devighat, survivors were struggling to salvage any remaining belongings from their devastated homes.

Kathmandu has appealed for international support, saying Nepal needed “more than a thousand” freezer units to store bodies.

Distraught families watch images of bodies on screens at community centres in a bid to identify their loved ones.

Shobha Adhikary, in the southern Nepali city of Bharatpur, told a local coordinator she believed one image showed her childhood best friend.

“It looks like him, for sure,” she said, showing a photograph of a smiling, middle-aged man.

Among Nepal’s list of the missing are 592 foreigners, including tourists who had come for mountain trekking, as well as Hindu pilgrims seeking spiritual peace at Tibet’s sacred Mount Kailash.

In China, Tibet is largely inaccessible to foreign journalists, and Chinese authorities are the only source of information.

More than 2,000 personnel are part of rescue operations there, but they have faced intense challenges, and are slowly advancing towards the disaster’s epicentre.

China has said 16 people died in Tibet, with 546 missing.

Tibetan advocacy groups in exile have questioned China’s account of the disaster.

Tencho Gyatso, president of the International Campaign for Tibet, called for China to disclose “complete and verifiable information about the damage and casualties”.

Beijing’s foreign ministry said Monday that the “release of information has been open, transparent and timely”, and rejected international reports it is underreporting deaths.