flood

Families in Nepal held symbolic funerals for relatives who remain missing, hoping to free their souls after they were presumed dead.

In Hindu tradition, cremation is a vital final rite, and for some families, performing the ceremony without the bodies of their loved ones has brought a measure of spiritual release.

Authorities in Nepal have meanwhile been burying recovered bodies in temporary graves until they can be identified. DNA samples are being preserved, distinguishing facial features photographed and other identifying details recorded to help match the remains with missing people and eventually return them to their families.

The August 26 flash flood has been one of the deadliest disasters to hit the Himalayan nation in recent years.

More than 1,200 people were killed and about 4,750 remain missing in Nepal and China’s Tibet region, after a huge wave of mud and debris destroyed towns, roads, bridges and several hydropower dams.

One person has died and 15 remain missing or unaccounted for after flash flooding swept through parts of the Grand Canyon, the National Park Service (NPS) has said.

The flood hit Bright Angel Canyon and the Phantom Ranch area on Saturday afternoon, wiping out footbridges and propelling boulders downstream.

The body of a 46-year-old man was found on Sunday evening near Crystal Rapids along the Colorado River, the park service told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. Sixty-two people have so far been airlifted out of the area.

“The whole thing was terrifying,” said Nikki Baggs, 41, who was among those to be airlifted out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon with her two friends.

“It was a beautiful day and then people were screaming, running,” she told the BBC.

Baggs said she and her friends had just dropped off their belongings at a cabin in Phantom Ranch – a remote lodge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon – when they decided to venture out to enjoy the nice day. Before they knew it, a flood of water was sweeping through the area.

As soon as the rain hit, Baggs and her friends headed toward higher ground, where they sat at a picnic table, before rangers yelled to them to run again to a different ledge, where they waited with others for hours before they were evacuated at around 21:30 local time (04:30 GMT).

Baggs said she and her two friends had been looking forward to a steak dinner at Phantom Ranch – but were now just grateful to be alive thanks to a swift response from park rangers.

“It was a really uniquely co-ordinated effort,” she said. “That’s what made us feel safe about all of it in an unsafe situation.”

Baggs said she and her friends watched from higher ground as bridges were swept away.

Nepal’s rescue teams, aided by Chinese and Indian experts, are racing to save more than 900 workers believed to be trapped underground at hydropower projects hit by devastating flash floods.

Nepali officials said on Monday that the focus was on reaching the workers in about a dozen hydropower project tunnels blocked by mud and rock debris.

The unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud and debris on the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday – caused by a glacier collapse – has killed 903 people with 4,247 missing in Nepal, its disaster authority said.

The flood also wreaked havoc across the border in China’s Tibet region, where at least 16 people died and 546 are missing, said Chinese authorities.

‘Big challenge’

Pictures and videos shared by rescue teams in Nepal showed earth-moving equipment digging and shovelling mud and rocks under lights in the dark of the night as workers watched. Soldiers used torchlights in a big pit they had created to look for space to get into one tunnel.

“A large amount of debris has been deposited and that is posing us a big challenge to open the tunnels,” Nepal army spokesperson, Raja Ram Basnet, told the Reuters news agency.

“Our main focus is on opening the tunnels.”

Hundreds of bodies, many unidentified, have been buried in shallow graves as they began decomposing in the humid weather after being swept down the mountains by the torrent.

At a hospital in the capital of Kathmandu, morgues have reached capacity and families are flocking to other hospitals in hopes of finding missing loved ones, reported Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez.

In addition to the 933 missing hydropower workers, some 500 workers from the Truck and Container Association are also missing, said Fernandez.

The Red Cross has estimated that more than 90,000 people are likely to have been affected by the disaster, which China has linked to the effects of climate change.

Prime Minister Balendra Shah said the flood was an “unprecedented and devastating natural disaster” and it remained challenging to compile a complete assessment of the damage.

“Despite the adverse weather, difficult terrain and continuing risks, we are moving forward with determination to save the lives of our citizens,” he said in a Facebook post late on Sunday, adding that nearly 21,000 security personnel were involved in rescue operations, besides civilian workers and volunteers.

While accessibility has been restored on many roads and highways, almost “40 kilometres of roads have been absolutely swept away”, Al Jazeera’s Fernandez said.

“So there are challenges on the ground in getting this aid to communities, but the authorities, as well as the agencies and their networks are working their way through it.”

China sends experts, aid

China’s state-run CCTV said the government has mobilised more than 2,100 rescue workers and allocated at least 220 million yuan ($33mn) to support relief efforts. Equipment and supplies have been airdropped to frontline rescuers, while Chinese soldiers used life-detection equipment to look for the missing.

Beijing said 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries were unaccounted for in Tibet.

“President Xi Jinping, according to state media, has called for all out efforts to rescue those missing in the mudslide, and this is the second time that the president has made such a call,” said Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing.

“So this seems to be the Chinese leader’s effort to call on people, not only to continue their efforts, but redouble their efforts even as things are looking grimmer and grimmer.”

China has sent nine tunnel rescue experts to Nepal and shared satellite information with Nepalese authorities, said Yu.

Although Nepal has said it does not need foreign help in general search and rescue efforts, it has accepted help from giant neighbours India and China for their expertise in tunnel rescue.

Rescue operations have been suspended several times since Friday because of bad weather and concerns that a lake, formed across the Nepal-China border by the disaster, could trigger new flooding after it began overflowing into Nepal’s rivers.

The weather was good on Monday and rescue work continued to pick up pace, said Narendra Pariyar, the district administrator of Rasuwa, one of the two hard-hit districts.

Aug. 28 (UPI) — After Wednesday’s devastating glacier collapse in the Himalayas, scientists and geologists are warning that unstable conditions and the accelerating retreat of Andean ice sheets are exposing Chile, Argentina and Peru to the risk of catastrophic floods and mudslides.

The retreat of Andean glaciers has accelerated the formation of unstable lakes and exposed large slopes of loose rock that can collapse more easily as global temperatures rise, experts say.

Fast-moving floods and mudslides through mountain valleys could directly threaten drinking water supplies, energy projects and the lives of thousands of people living in vulnerable areas of the three countries.

The Himalayan disaster, which has left almost 600 people dead and more than 1,900 others missing, experts say that although monitoring and early-warning technologies exist, the speed and scale of glacial lake outburst floods, or GLOFs, such as the one in Nepal can make responding difficult.

“What happened in Nepal has already happened in Argentina,” Juan Pablo Milana, a researcher with Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, told Infobae.

In November 2005, Laguna de los Erizos in San Juan province suddenly burst, releasing more than 1.1 billion cubic feet of water in just 67 minutes, Milana said. The flood traveled more than 155 miles, destroying crops and roads and isolating communities. No deaths were reported because the area was sparsely populated.

In Argentina, the areas at greatest risk are concentrated in Patagonia. One of the most critical sites currently under observation is the tourist town of El Chaltén, where instability on the slopes of Cerro Solo directly threatens Laguna Torre.

Lakes formed by the retreat of large ice masses, such as the Upsala Glacier, also pose a potential threat. In 2013, a collapse in the glacier’s channel generated a destructive wave in Onelli Bay.

Argentina’s Geological and Mining Survey and research teams from the University of Buenos Aires are responsible for monitoring the threats.

They combine satellite imagery used to update the National Glacier Inventory with projects to establish ground-based early-warning systems. Those systems are designed to use weather stations and hydrological sensors to detect changes in water levels and unusual slope movements in real time.

With more than 26,000 glaciers, Chile is among the countries most exposed to GLOFs worldwide, with risks divided between two distinct geographic areas.

The largest high-risk zone is concentrated in remote Chilean Patagonia, particularly the Aysén and Magallanes regions, where the rapid retreat of the Northern and Southern Patagonian Ice Fields has increased the formation of unstable lakes held back by fragile natural dams, although the region has a low population density.

Geographer Simón Inzunza told Chilean broadcaster T13 that the country has recorded GLOFs, particularly in Patagonia, as well as other emergencies associated with glacier melting and ice collapses.

In central Chile, watersheds are smaller but the risk is significant because of the high concentration of infrastructure, including hydroelectric plants, mining operations and drinking water systems serving millions of people.

Darío Ormeño, a geologist and professor at Andrés Bello University’s School of Earth Sciences, told BioBioChile radio that a mudslide is a real risk in Chile, although an event on the scale of the Nepal disaster is unlikely.

“Our glaciers are much smaller and do not have such an extreme elevation difference,” Ormeño said.

Chilean government agencies monitor glaciers using a national inventory updated with satellite imagery and radar. The tools allow authorities to measure the growth of glacial lakes and detect cracks in Andean slopes in an effort to issue early warnings before a disaster occurs.

Peru faces the highest risk in South America of disasters caused by GLOFs, with a history of deadly events and significant geographic vulnerability.

Paola Moschella, director of glacier research at Peru’s National Institute for Research on Glaciers and Mountain Ecosystems, or INAIGEM, told Exitosa radio that Peru has 528 lakes at risk of overflowing, including 58 considered high risk.

Unlike Patagonia and some high-altitude areas of Chile and Argentina, where glaciers are in remote valleys, entire cities and critical infrastructure in the Peruvian Andes, particularly in the Áncash region, lie directly along potential flood and mudslide routes.

Lake Palcacocha, in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca mountain range, is considered by scientists to be one of the world’s most critical cases because of its instability and proximity to the city of Huaraz, which has more than 120,000 residents.

The lake holds more than 599 million cubic feet of water and is fed by hanging glaciers that are susceptible to large avalanches as global temperatures rise.

If a large block of ice were to collapse into the lake, it could generate a massive wave capable of breaching its natural barriers and triggering a destructive flood that could reach urban areas in less than an hour.

The threat has a deadly historical precedent. In 1941, a similar outburst from the same lake destroyed about one-third of Huaraz and killed thousands of people.

Scientific monitoring in Peru has advanced significantly through the deployment of permanent personnel in high-altitude areas and the use of satellite surveillance systems.

Experts warn, however, that physical mitigation infrastructure installed in previous decades is outdated or insufficient to contain current water volumes.

At a Kathmandu hospital, families peer at lists of those who are critical, dead — or have been released.

Kathmandu/Nuwakot/Trishuli, Nepal – Loknath Chaulagain is looking for his 23-year-old nephew Sudarshan at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital.

A bus conductor, Sudarshan was waiting at the checkpoint in Timure, a town bordering Tibet, when the flash flood that devastated parts of Nepal and Tibet struck on Wednesday. His family says a phone call went through to his number at 9:54am local time – after the flash flood struck the border region – but Sudarshan did not pick up the call. Since then, his phone has been unreachable.

The family has been searching for him – near where the floods struck, and now in Kathmandu’s hospitals, where some survivors have been brought. But so far, they’ve had no luck.

They’re not alone. Thousands of families in Nepal are still stranded in the no-man’s land between hope and fear: hopes of an impossible miracle and worst fears of losing someone they love.

Two days after the flash flood swept away much of what lay in its path along the Bhotekoshi River in the northern Himalayan region bordering Tibet, the full scale of devastation is yet to be ascertained in Nepal. The death toll is on the rise, with nearly 500 bodies recovered. The missing toll is well over 1,000 and is expected to rise further.

The wall of water with ice and mud that surged downstream with fury on August 26 caused maximum damage to Timure, Rasuwagadhi and Syabrubesi in the higher Rasuwa region nearer to Tibetan border checkpoints.

Downstream, it washed away buildings, electric poles, bridges, markets, homes and vehicles that stood in its path in Trishuli and Nuwakot regions.

The usually buzzing Trishuli market is today covered in mud, sludge and debris. Locals, including many Indians who have made the area their home for many years, beg and plead with relief workers to take them to their destroyed homes in earthmovers to retrieve whatever may be left of their belongings.

Helicopters whirred nonstop on Wednesday and Thursday in these areas, trying to rescue those trapped under the rubble or washed away and stranded in dangerous situations. Those rescued with lighter injuries are being treated at the army camp helipad medical unit, while those with grievous injuries are being airlifted to bigger facilities in Kathmandu.

At the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, people come by and plaster posters on walls with photographs and contact details of missing friends and family. Other hospital pillars bear lists of those who have been admitted or are in critical condition – or those who have been killed: five-year-old Ishara Tamang in paediatric surgery; 30-year-old Tej Bhadur Tamang in the ICU; 25-year-old male Kusal Magar, listed as dead. Multiple pairs of concerned eyes gaze intensely at these lists, hoping to find their loved ones there.

Among them is Sohan, a young man who does not want to speak to journalists on camera. He is searching for his 42-year-old father, Gyan Bahadur Rana Magar. “Three days on, we are searching and still trying to find him,” he says. His father went with Indian tourists as a guide to Rasuwa, the border district with Tibet that is one of the worst affected.

When the lists on pillars offer no answers, people searching for their loved ones head to the mortuary where photographs of some of the recovered bodies have been glued to the gates. Many bodies were found dismembered; some were missing limbs. When someone finds a hint of familiarity, they inform security officials, who let them in after some identification check to take a look at the body.

Dressed in a red saree and blouse, and wearing a red pothe necklace  – a traditional glass-bead necklace worn by married women in Nepal – Lal Kumari is desperately looking for her husband, Arjun Shreshtha. A tourist van driver in his late 40s, he was swept away by the flood in Rasuwa district. Kumari has three children, including a married daughter and a grandchild, and her only question is: Could her husband, miraculously, still be alive?