Nepal, flood death toll rises to 903 as searches continue in tunnels

The official count of the flood that hit the Nepal-China border region on August 26 continues to rise. Nepal’s national authority for disaster risk reduction and management announced on Monday, August 30 that the death toll stands at 903, as reported by Al Jazeera, citing the agency and Reuters. The hardest-hit district is Rasuwa.

The progression of the figures over the span of a few days shows how much the picture is still shifting. On August 29, the Nepali outlet Hamra Kura, citing data presented by a Nepal police spokesperson, put the toll at 669 dead and 2,362 missing, including 1,863 Nepali citizens and 523 foreigners; among the 669 bodies were 148 women, 268 men and 42 children, in addition to 211 partial human remains recovered separately. The figure of 903 given the following day by the national authority is therefore an increase, not a downward revision: the two figures come from different sources and refer to different points in time.

The missing at the construction sites

The most difficult part of the search effort concerns the hydroelectric works in central Nepal, where more than 900 workers remain missing. Teams working on the Rasuwagadhi hydroelectric project have reported detecting no signs of human presence at the site, according to the Nepali prime minister’s office, cited by CNN.

Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal has asked neighboring countries for specialized support: tunnel rescue, technology for detecting survivors, forensic and DNA analysis, refrigerated units for morgues. He described the search effort as “currently our national priority” (transl. from English), reports CBS News. An eleven-member Indian tunnel rescue reconnaissance team has been deployed, and a similar Chinese team was expected shortly.

The Chinese side and foreign nationals

Chinese Premier Li Qiang spoke of significant loss of life on his country’s side of the border, where at least five deaths and 550 missing were reported. On the front of foreign nationals involved, the U.S. State Department reported that ninety American citizens were unaccounted for.

Data	Value	Source and date
Deaths in Nepal	903	national disaster authority, August 30
Dead and missing (police)	669 and 2,362	Nepal police, August 29
Missing workers at construction sites	over 900	prime minister’s office
Dead and missing on the Chinese side	at least 5 and 550	statement by Li Qiang
U.S. citizens unaccounted for	90	U.S. State Department

What we don’t know

The figures for dead and missing come from different sources — the national authority, the police, the prime minister’s office, the Chinese government — and have not been consolidated into a single count. It is not known how many of the missing construction workers are included in the total of 2,362 reported by the police. No joint Nepal-China toll has been published, nor has an official Nepali damage estimate been issued beyond the preliminary assessment from the first days.

This newspaper will continue to publish each new figure, explicitly indicating the direction of any revision relative to what has already been reported.