UPDATED 27 August 2026, 16:53 UTC. This story is developing. The confirmed death toll rose from 95 to 157 late on Wednesday. Earlier versions of this report cited tolls of nine, 22 and 95.
Nepal Police have raised the death toll to 389 and cut the number missing to 644 as people are located. The US State Department says 90 Americans are unaccounted for. Two lakes dammed by the debris remain a threat over the valley.
Toll Reaches 389 as the Missing Count Falls
Nepal Police put the toll at 389, with 466 people injured. Counting the three killed on the Tibetan side, at least 392 have died across the border region. The figure moved twice within the hour, from 270 to 332 in local media reports and then to 359 from the police themselves. The count has climbed continuously since Wednesday: 22, then 72, 95, 157, 165, 270, 332 and now 359. The number missing in Nepal has since been cut to 644, according to Nepal Police, down from 910 overnight as people are located and records reconciled. Foreign citizens account for 517 of that total, drawn from at least 30 countries. Identification is far from complete.
The official count may be a floor rather than a total. A reporter for The Kathmandu Post told ABC News that residents downstream are recovering bodies themselves, outside any official tally, and that the real number of dead is likely higher than the government figure.
People are collecting the dead bodies, you know, downstream.
Police break the 826 down as 579 travellers, 161 residents of Rasuwa and one of Nuwakot, plus 85 security personnel: 44 from the Nepali Army, 28 from Nepal Police and 13 from the Armed Police Force. Preliminary Nepal Tourism Board data splits the 579 into 466 foreign nationals and 113 Nepalis.
Where the Bodies Are Being Found
Nepal Police published a district breakdown on Thursday morning, when the count stood at 165. No breakdown has been issued for the bodies recovered since. It shows how far the surge carried people: Rasuwa, where the flood began, accounts for two bodies, while Chitwan, far downstream on the Trishuli and Narayani, accounts for 65.
| District | Bodies recovered |
|---|---|
| Chitwan | 65 |
| Dhading | 27 |
| Nawalparasi East | 26 |
| Gorkha | 20 |
| Nuwakot | 12 |
| Tanahun | 9 |
| Nawalparasi West | 5 |
| Rasuwa | 2 |
Those district figures add up to 166 against the 165 given at the time, a one-body gap of the kind that is normal while a count is still moving. At the 95-body stage police recorded the dead as 27 women, 37 men, six girls, five boys and 20 people not yet identified, with 63 injured under treatment.
Roughly 400 Still Unaccounted For
Nepal said on Thursday, 24 hours after the flood, that 468 tourists and travellers remain out of contact, 393 of them foreign nationals. That is up from the 403 given a day earlier by Sunil Sharma, officiating director of the Nepal Tourism Board’s public relations and publicity department, of whom 341 were foreign. That framing matches Al Jazeera’s reporting and clears up an earlier discrepancy: a figure of 403 foreign nationals plus 93 Nepali tourists, attributed to the prime minister’s office by ABC News, appears to have counted the same 403 differently. The Kathmandu Post separately listed 391 foreign tourists.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority put the figure at 910 early on Friday. Nepal Police have since cut it to 644, of whom 517 are foreign citizens from at least 30 countries. The figures below are Nepal Police counts. A higher figure of 288 missing Indians circulated earlier in the day and has not been repeated by the police. Most of the missing Indians were on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet.
| Country | Reported missing |
|---|---|
| India | 178 |
| China | 100+ |
| United States | 65 |
| Ukraine | 53 |
| Malaysia | 51 |
| Australia | 35 |
| Britain | 33 |
| Canada | 25 |
| Germany | 8 |
| Singapore | 6 |
| South Africa | 6 |
The 62 non-foreign names on that list are Nepali. Separately, officials reported at least 62 Nepali citizens missing among people trekking near Gosaikunda lake in Rasuwa for the Janai Purnima festival, a figure that matches the domestic share of the Tourism Board total.
Nationals of Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa and South Korea are also among the missing. Earlier in the day the American count was lower and less settled: Hikmat Singh Ayer, chief executive of the Tourism Board, put it at 33, cited by CBS News, and the operator Fishtail Tours and Travel confirmed three of its own American clients among the missing.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government was closely following the situation in Nepal and China, and Ottawa issued updated travel advisories for both countries.
Security losses are heavy. The total stands at 85 personnel missing, though the split between services differs by source. OnlineKhabar quotes each force separately: 32 police officers, according to Nepal Police central spokesperson DIG Abinarayan Kafle; nine Armed Police Force personnel from the Timure Border Outpost, according to APF spokesperson DSP Shailendra Thapa; and 44 soldiers deployed to guard Langtang National Park and hydropower projects, according to army spokesperson Brigadier General Rajaram Basnet. The Kathmandu Post reported the same total with a different internal split, 28 police and 13 Armed Police Force. Sixty people connected to hydropower projects are out of contact, along with 15 employees of the Rasuwa Customs Office and 26 bank staff.
Among Nepal’s Deadliest Disasters in Three Decades
Security officials and disaster experts told the Kathmandu Post the flood may rank among the deadliest in Nepal’s modern history, potentially surpassing every disaster since the 1993 floods in Sarlahi, Rautahat and Makawanpur, which killed about 1,400 people.
Avalanche, Not the Earthquake, Is Now the Leading Explanation
Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, citing Planet Labs satellite imagery, said a snow and rock landslide came down about 20 kilometres northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border point, on the Nepal-China frontier. Al Jazeera reports the glacier section broke away at about 5,200 metres and fell some 1,200 metres into the valley below. The authority said the slide sent a debris-laden flood down the Lhende River, which runs through Timure and into the Trishuli.
That finding reconciles what looked earlier in the day like two rival theories. The United States Geological Survey recorded a magnitude 4.4 earthquake in the Nepal-China border region, and preliminary information placed a quake at about 8:37am local time. Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal had said an earthquake triggered a large landslide that blocked the river, according to CBS News. That question is now settled. The United States Geological Survey has revised its own reading: what it first logged as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake was in fact the glacial collapse itself, registering at magnitude 5.2. The agency based the revision on nearby seismic stations, long-period seismic waves and satellite imagery, and concluded that no earthquake occurred. The collapse shook the ground, not the other way around.
“The Lhende Khola has flooded twice in 14 months, this time triggered by an ice rock avalanche from a glacier on the Nepal side that blocked the river and released a sudden surge downstream,” said Saswata Sanyal, a disaster risk reduction specialist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.
The surge hit Timure at about 9am local time, then ran downstream through Syaphrubesi, Mailung and Betrawati into the Trishuli. Hydrological readings put the water level on the Trishuli rising by as much as nine metres in half an hour. Hatim Sharif, a hydrologist quoted by ABC News, described the mudflow as moving “like liquid concrete” and said it travelled so fast that “running will not help”. That helps explain the concentration of losses at the border crossing, where people were queuing rather than watching the river. Amrit Thapa, a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, has also pointed to an ice and rock landslide as the trigger. The dam formed and failed within the same morning, and there was no official warning system to trigger. What existed instead was a chain of phone calls. Residents upstream rang people below as the water came through, giving those who answered an estimated 15 to 30 minutes to climb. “Those people who received the calls from the upstream that the flood is coming, evacuated the area,” one local told ABC News. Where the calls did not reach, or where people were queuing indoors at the border post, there was nothing. The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology recorded under seven millimetres of precipitation in Rasuwa over the previous 24 hours.
A Hundred of the Missing Are Found Alive
Rescuers in Nepal have located 100 of the missing Indian nationals, and 25 Chinese workers have been pulled out, according to ABC News. More than 30 foreign citizens have since been rescued, among them 11 Indians and four South Koreans, along with nationals of the United States, Russia, Italy, Bulgaria and Switzerland. No Australians are on that list. It is the first substantial reduction in the missing since the flood struck.
Brigadier General Raja Ram Basnet, the army spokesperson, said helicopter crews brought out more than 100 people on Thursday, with eight foreign nationals flown to Kathmandu and further teams evacuating people trapped inside facilities tied to the Trishuli hydropower project.
The official tallies quoted above predate these rescues. Nepal’s figure of 826 missing was issued at 8:15am on Thursday and has not yet been revised to account for them.
Glaciologists Expect More of These
Simon Cook, a glaciologist quoted by ABC News, said warming is destabilising Himalayan ice and that the region should expect a higher frequency of events like this one.
There is going to be a lot more meltwater around, loosening things up. More avalanches, more landslides and more catastrophic floods.
The Lhende has now flooded twice in 14 months.
Two Barrier Lakes Are Now Being Tracked
Authorities on both sides of the border are watching two separate bodies of water dammed by the debris.
Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said satellite images show a lake forming at the flood site itself, created when Wednesday’s debris blocked the river. The authority said it is rising and at risk of bursting, and issued an alert to rescue workers and residents along the lower banks of the Bhote Koshi to stay away from the river until further notice. Nepal has restricted movement along key highways and moved residents out of vulnerable areas.
China’s Ministry of Water Resources is tracking a second lake on its own side of the border, near the confluence of the Chhochen Khola and the Purepu Tsangpo, which formed in the scar left by an earlier landslide. It held about two million cubic metres as of Thursday morning and is already overflowing. A further three million cubic metres is expected to flow in over the next three days, leaving a significant risk of a breach.
Experts Warn a Second Flood Is Possible
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development warned that a blockage is still lodged upstream on the river along the Nepal-China border, leaving a second flood possible, according to ABC News. A blockage that has not been cleared can fail the same way the first one did, with no warning to the settlements below.
The debris has dammed the valley into what engineers call a barrier lake, water held back by an unstable plug of ice, rock and mud. A 141-member Chinese team arrived in Gyirong early on Thursday with a helicopter, satellite equipment, drones and 3D scanners. Its first readings are mixed: the landslide itself has stopped growing, but the barrier lake behind it is still filling. A barrier lake fails when the water behind the plug either overtops it or collapses it, which sends a second surge down the same valley. China has warned of a possible secondary disaster, with more rain forecast over Gyirong county this week in terrain already prone to landslides and mudflows. Rain fills the lake faster than the plug can be cleared. India’s Bihar state has begun evacuating about 12,000 people across six districts downstream as a precaution. The Bhote Koshi feeds the Trishuli and then crosses into India as the Gandak.
The Red Cross said entire villages and market areas along the river have been wiped out. The head of its delegation described a wall of water up to 10 metres high sweeping through communities and said survivors have lost everything they own, with whole areas now reachable only by helicopter. United Nations teams have mobilised supplies and personnel, and the tour operator G Adventures confirmed all of its travellers and staff in the region are safe.
The Nepal Tourism Board has raised the number of missing Australians to at least 35, up from the 34 confirmed earlier by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong. ABC News reported that 15 of them were on a hiking tour run by the US-based operator Himalayan Glacier Adventures. The 34 are spread across three operators, according to ABC News: 15 with Himalayan Glacier Adventures, six with Kailash Journey and one with Kathmandu Holiday Tours and Travels. The operator Kailash Journeys said 26 of its tourists and five members of its staff are unaccounted for in total, across all nationalities, according to ABC News. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia was urgently seeking to confirm the welfare of all 34, spread across separate pilgrimages and tour groups, and that additional consular crisis staff were being deployed to support the Kathmandu post. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had said only that it was aware of a number of Australians in the area. Australian minister Tanya Plibersek said the government was “very concerned” and called the images “very disturbing indeed”.
Survivors Describe Water Reaching Top Floors
A survivor told ABC News he was driven onto the roof of his house as the water rose past the upper storey, and waited hours for a helicopter while his wife remained buried in the mudslide.
I was at the terrace and the flood hit the top floor as well. After 4-5 hours I was rescued by a helicopter.
Aid workers quoted by ABC News said surviving families have been left without homes, possessions or livelihoods, and raised concerns about waterborne disease spreading through the affected settlements.
Pilgrims Caught at the Border Crossing
Maa Gambhiri, who coordinates pilgrimages to Mount Kailash, told ABC News that 77 people travelling with her foundation and three volunteers remain unreachable. Her account places them at the border post when the water arrived.
They were at the immigration centre on the Chinese side and looks like within 10 minutes this flood struck them.
Casualties Across the Border in Tibet
CCTV now puts the number missing in Gyirong county at 558, including 260 foreign nationals, up from the 265 the broadcaster reported on Wednesday evening quoting a rescue command centre. Three deaths have been confirmed on the Chinese side and two people have been rescued there. The mudslide struck the Gyirong port trade hub, cutting roads, communications and power across parts of the Shigatse region. CCTV said the slide originated on the Nepali side of the border. Gyirong Port is Tibet’s main foreign trade crossing and handles the bulk of Chinese trade with Nepal, which is why so many people were there. An Australian academic stranded in Kathmandu told ABC News the main highway linking Nepal to Tibet would take “months, if ever” to reopen, which would sever the country’s primary overland trade route with China. Chinese rescuers reached Gyirong port itself at about 8am on Thursday, roughly 22 hours after the wall of water hit it, having been held up by blocked roads and poor weather. Premier Li Qiang has since arrived in Gyirong to direct the response, bringing 500 military and paramilitary personnel, with military helicopters searching for survivors and assessing evacuation routes. Visits of that seniority to disaster sites are rare in China and signal how the leadership rates the scale of this one. The first batch of 141 rescuers arrived alongside a high-altitude Mi-171 helicopter. China’s Ministry of Emergency Management has sent 249 firefighters and 325 engineering rescue personnel, and the Tibet regional government has mobilised close to 800 emergency workers, 150 vehicles, search dogs and speedboats. As of 8am on Thursday, two villagers had been rescued in Resuo and three bodies recovered, according to NBC News. Beijing has activated a second-level national disaster response and allocated about 17 million dollars in relief funds.
President Xi Jinping ordered an all-out rescue effort and called for stronger monitoring and early warning to prevent secondary disasters, according to CCTV. Tibetan authorities closed several highways and warned that more roads were at risk of mudslides.
Eighty Bridges Damaged and 430 MW of Capacity Lost
The NDRRMA now counts 35 motorable bridges and 45 suspension bridges damaged, along with 40 kilometres of paved road, a far wider figure than the 19 bridges reported a day earlier. Among them is the Miteri Bridge, the road link between Nepal and China at Rasuwagadhi, which was washed away. Mobile and fibre connections were cut with it, leaving families and tour operators unable to reach pilgrims who had been waiting to cross. The Kathmandu Post reported nine hydropower projects and nine commercial bank branches destroyed and hundreds of houses lost across the affected settlements. Nepal’s government, sworn in only in March, is coordinating the response while also housing the displaced.
The Nepal Electricity Authority put the damaged generation capacity at roughly 430 megawatts across hydropower and solar plants, more than 12 percent of Nepal’s installed base of about 3.2 GW. The Trishuli and Devighat plants were hit directly, and three blocks and a substation of a 25 MW solar plant were destroyed.
Rescue Effort Slowed by Weather
Rescue teams have now reached Timure, the settlement hit first and cut off since Wednesday. The Nepal Army said its effort was intensifying into the night, with helicopters searching and dropping emergency supplies to communities still cut off. A Reuters correspondent in the area described the water and mud as thick and dense, and said few people were being pulled out alive as teams worked through mountainous terrain in monsoon conditions. The NDRRMA says 123 people have been lifted out of Timure by air, 94 Nepalis and 29 foreign nationals. Among those brought out were seven workers trapped inside a hydropower tunnel at Haku and 21 Indian tourists. ABC News put the day’s total at 125 people, 20 of them foreign nationals, and Nepal has now deployed more than 13,000 security force personnel to the operation, up from about 5,000 on Thursday morning. The disaster authority said more than 750 people were rescued on Thursday alone. Fifteen helicopters are flying, seven from the Nepal Army and eight from private operators, according to OnlineKhabar, which reported at least 97 evacuated by air by Wednesday evening. An earlier Kathmandu Post count put army rescues at 88, with 13 people admitted to Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital. Flights were repeatedly disrupted by poor weather on Wednesday.
Save the Children Nepal has reached the disaster zone. Country director Tara Chettry said shelter is the top priority and that the search will take days. “For others there are no roads. Even walking is almost impossible,” she said.
The aid agency World Vision said roads and bridges into Rasuwa have collapsed, severely limiting how quickly relief can reach the district.
Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah addressed the families of the missing directly, according to Al Jazeera.
The government takes full responsibility for your rescue, treatment, food and shelter.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on X that he had spoken to Balendra Shah. “Spoke to Prime Minister Balendra Shah and conveyed condolences on the loss of lives due to the floods in Nepal,” Modi wrote, adding that India was ready to provide all possible humanitarian assistance and that “our teams are coordinating closely on rescue and relief efforts”.
South Korea is sending a joint rapid-response team after eight of its nationals working on a hydropower plant went missing and ten more were stranded. Malaysia’s foreign ministry has revised its own count sharply upward, from 11 to 55 citizens now unreachable, citing infrastructure damage that is preventing contact. Nepal has asked both India and China for assistance. Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Chitawan and Gorkha districts remain on high alert.
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