Nepal and Tibet, Nepalese police count more than 600 dead and around 2,500 missing

Redazione Zero’s morning edition came out with the Chronicle section empty, with the reason stated in the editorial: the count of victims from the flood wave at the border between Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region did not rest on sufficiently independent sources, and a death toll is by policy a weighty claim. In the afternoon the picture of sources changed, and the piece can now be written.

According to the Nepalese police, more than 600 people have died in Nepal following the flood that struck the border area with China. Around 2,500 people are reported missing in the two countries, including foreign nationals of various nationalities (CNN). Nepalese authorities had already provided initial indications in the hours following the event (CNN); the review of wire dispatches from August 28 is reported by Sarno Notizie, while a health alert was issued by the World Health Network.

The origin of the wave

The event was traced back to the collapse of a mass of ice at high altitude. The water swept away villages, bridges and roads on both sides and struck the Gyirong border complex. On the Chinese side, state media reported that no signs of survivors have been found at the affected crossing: this is information that must be read for what it is, a claim by state-controlled news outlets, not an independent verification.

The operational focus of the coming hours, however, does not concern the toll but the geography of the high mountains. Authorities are monitoring a second basin that has formed at altitude: the first dammed lake had breached its banks on Friday, generating the wave. The formation of temporary lakes behind ice and debris dams is the sequence that makes this type of disaster repeatable within days, and explains why search operations are taking place in an area that remains at risk.

Among the assessments gathered on the residual risk, Jeffrey Kargel defines the situation as “extremely concerning” (transl. from English).

Why the numbers remain provisional

The two main figures are not homogeneous. The “more than 600 dead” is a count by the Nepalese police and concerns Nepal alone. The “around 2,500 missing” instead concerns both countries. Adding them together, or presenting them as a single bi-national toll, would be incorrect: in the available material there is no Chinese figure on victims comparable to the Nepalese one.

There is also the very nature of the “missing” category in a flood of this scale. In events of this type, the number decreases as people are traced and grows as new reports arrive from isolated villages; in the coming days both figures are likely to shift. This newspaper will publish every revision stating its direction, even when it is downward.

What we do not know

No official count of victims on the Chinese side is available. The number of foreigners involved is not known, nor their nationality. There are no public indications on the volume of water released by the first lake, nor a technical estimate of the probability of the second one breaching. The state of the communication routes toward the affected area is not known, an element that determines the ability of rescuers to reach isolated communities: the Gyirong border complex, which was the main crossing point, is among the structures struck by the wave.