Nepal Flood Missing Nears 1,500; Americans Listed

The Nepal-Tibet flood is far larger than it looked on Wednesday. Reuters' live file Thursday counts some 1,500 people still unaccounted for and more than 160 dead. The number of missing Americans has gone from three to at least 63.

And the cause has changed. The U.S. Geological Survey now says the seismic event first reported as an earthquake was not one — it was a glacier collapsing.

The toll, by source

The counts are moving fast and the outlets do not agree. Each figure below belongs to the organization named.

• Reuters (live file, Thursday): more than 160 killed, some 1,500 still unaccounted for.
• The Wall Street Journal: at least 180 confirmed dead, more than 1,400 missing across Nepal and China.
• NPR: over 170 dead.
• The Guardian and Al Jazeera: at least 160 dead — 157 bodies recovered in Nepal, per Nepal police, and three killed on the Tibet side.

Chinese state media reported three dead and 265 missing in Gyirong County in Tibet, according to the Guardian and Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera reports at least 65 people were being treated for injuries in local hospitals and in Kathmandu.

Officials on both sides of the border have warned the death toll will rise. Al Jazeera reports helicopters cannot land in some affected areas until the waters recede, and much of the region is without electricity.

The Americans

Reuters reported Thursday at 07:36 UTC that at least 63 U.S. citizens are missing, citing Nepal's tourism board. That is the highest figure The Frank has seen attributed to a named official source.

Earlier Thursday, the Guardian and Al Jazeera both reported 47 Americans among the missing, also attributed to Nepal's tourism board — the Guardian as part of a list of at least 403 tourists unaccounted for, 341 of them foreigners, per Nepal's tourism ministry.

The Frank reported Wednesday that three Americans were among 384 missing. Both halves of that have been overtaken. Readers should treat the American count as unsettled: it has been reported at three, then 47, then at least 63 inside 24 hours, and Nepali authorities are revising as bodies are recovered and as tourists check in.

Who else is missing

Reuters reports more than 700 foreigners are still listed as missing across Nepal and Tibet — revised down from an estimated 800 earlier in the day. Its latest list, attributed to Nepal's tourism board except where noted: India 177, the United States at least 63, Ukraine at least 54, Australia 34 (per Foreign Minister Penny Wong), Britain 33, Canada 25, Germany at least eight, and nine South Koreans working at a hydropower plant.

Al Jazeera reports Nepal's Prime Minister's Office put the missing at 484, including 391 foreign tourists and 93 Nepalis. Al Jazeera reports that many of the missing foreign nationals are pilgrims who had been traveling toward Mount Kailash in Tibet, a site sacred to Hindus, while others were trekking around Gosaikunda Lake in Rasuwa district during the Janai Purnima festival.

At least 28 Nepal police officials were missing, a police spokesperson told the Guardian.

"This event was initially reported as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake," the agency said in a statement quoted by the Guardian. "Additional analysis of nearby seismic stations, long period seismic waves, and satellite imagery led to the determination that the seismic event was instead a glacial collapse and debris flow, and that no earthquake had occurred."

The agency said the glacial collapse "caused subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream," and registered as a magnitude 5.2 seismic event.

The response

Nepalese soldiers and rescue teams have deployed with helicopters, drones and search dogs, Al Jazeera reports, though high water, damaged roads and mud have slowed access to the worst-hit areas. Tibet officials mobilised nearly 800 emergency workers and 150 vehicles, plus sniffer dogs and speed boats, according to Xinhua as reported by the Guardian. Chinese leader Xi Jinping ordered an "all-out" search-and-rescue effort.

India sent a rescue aircraft with about 10 tonnes of emergency supplies. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies released 1 million Swiss francs ($1.2 million) for the Nepal Red Cross Society and said entire villages and markets were "wiped out." The United Nations has deployed personnel in Nepal, and the European Union activated its Copernicus satellite mapping service. All per Al Jazeera and the Guardian.