Glacier Collapse Kills 160 in Nepal; Americans Missing

The flood on the Nepal-Tibet border was caused by a collapsing glacier, not an earthquake, and the toll is still climbing. The Associated Press reports at least 160 dead with hundreds missing. The Wall Street Journal puts it higher — at least 180 confirmed dead and more than 1,400 missing across Nepal and China, with the water carrying some victims more than 150 miles. Asia Times, publishing an analysis from The Conversation, says more than 150 are dead.

We print the spread because the sources genuinely disagree, and the count is moving hour to hour.

How many Americans are missing is disputed

This is the part most likely to be reported wrong. Three different numbers are in circulation:

ABC News, reporting Wednesday on the Nepal Tourism Board's preliminary list of 384 missing, said at least three were American tourists. CBS News carried the same breakdown: three Americans among 291 missing foreign nationals, alongside 142 Indians, 17 Malaysians, 12 Britons, eight South Koreans, four South Africans, one Australian and one Dutch national, with the nationalities of 111 others not yet established. USA Today then reported that a Nepal tourism board spokesperson, Sunil Sharma, told the Toronto Star the missing foreigners include 47 Americans, 34 Australians, 33 Britons and 24 Canadians. The BBC reports Nepali authorities saying dozens of Americans and Canadians are among the missing. Asia Times says at least 34 Australians are missing.

What actually happened

An enormous wave of water, ice, mud and rock ran more than 170 kilometres down the Bhote Koshi River valley — the main route between Kathmandu and Lhasa — with almost no warning, according to the Asia Times analysis by Levan Tielidze, a glacial geomorphology research fellow at Monash University. He writes that early analysis points to the abrupt collapse of a glacier, that satellite imagery suggests a landslide carved away large parts of it, and that this was not a glacial lake outburst flood of the kind that hit Nepal in 2024.

The detail that corrects the early reporting: the landslide was so large it was first taken for an earthquake, its seismic energy registering as a magnitude 4.4 event on seismographs, per Tielidze citing the U.S. Geological Survey. Early estimates he cites put the wave as high as 30 metres. Tielidze is explicit that it is too early to state the exact cause.