Glaciers that caused Nepal-China flood are ‘at high risk of collapse’: warning as death toll passes 1,000 and race to free 500 trapped in tunnels continues

Millions of tons of ice in the glaciers around Nepal’s flash-flood-hit valley China are at risk of collapsing, which could trigger yet another natural disaster, experts warned today.

The death toll from the floods has already reached more than 1,000 as rescue teams scramble to reach communities cut off by the August 26 disaster.

China’s Ministry of Water Resources yesterday warned of a “major risk” from the glaciers around Nepal’s Cuojian River, where a glacier collapsed, sending large amounts of rock, ice and meltwater into valleys in Nepal and Tibet.

Floodwaters have swept away houses, buildings, roads and bridges, carrying mud and stones downstream and causing widespread destruction.

The ministry said water levels at a barrier lake had dropped significantly after flooding in Nepal, but warned that unstable glaciers downstream could cause further flooding.

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images captured on Monday morning showed that the area of ​​the water body at the impact crater on Nepal’s Cuojian River had shrunk to about 83,000 square meters, down from 108,000 square meters on Sunday morning.

While water is currently flowing through the canal, further landslides could block the river and create a new barrier lake, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, the China Meteorological Administration has warned of more rain in Tibet’s Gyirong province in the next three days.

Rescue workers were also urged to remain on high alert as more rain could complicate rescue efforts and make roads slippery for heavy machinery carrying out the crucial work.

The warnings come as authorities continue to search for thousands of people still missing.

Rescue teams are also helping survivors in areas where roads and other transportation routes have been damaged or cut off.

For rescuers, the immediate priority remains to find at least 900 workers missing from 12 hydropower projects damaged by the flash floods. About 500 of them are believed to be trapped in tunnels.

Brigadier General Raja Ram Basnet, spokesman for the Nepalese army, said teams, assisted by foreign experts, were working on several hydropower projects to reach people trapped in blocked tunnels.

Footage released by the military showed rescue teams entering dark, rubble-filled tunnels, wading through mud and water and climbing over rocks in search of signs of life.

At the Upper Trishuli 3A site, rescuers broke into the upper part of a mud-flooded tunnel, pumped air in and then used drills and excavators to dig down.

“When members of the team descended with ropes and shouted to those inside, there was no response,” Shah said, adding that the rescue operation continued.

Kulman Gsising, former head of many of the hydropower projects who has just returned from the scene to help coordinate the rescue operation, told the Daily Mail:

“It’s impossible to say how long the workers will be able to survive because we simply don’t know the condition of the tunnels.

‘We estimate there are 300 workers in six to eight tunnels. If there is enough oxygen and food, they may be fine for several weeks. But from what I’ve seen so far, that’s not the case.

“There was one tunnel that was reached and it was completely filled with water and mud, so we couldn’t tell if there were workers inside. For another, after we had created an opening, there was no response when we called.’

Mr Gsising, who previously served as Nepal’s energy minister, said: “The entire area has been devastated and many villages and hydropower projects have been wiped off the face of the earth.”

‘We have to find our people as quickly as possible. This is a desperate race against time.”

The Nepal Electricity Authority said 11 hydropower plants and one solar power plant, with a combined capacity of 431.1 megawatts – about 10 percent of the country’s installed electricity generation capacity – were no longer operating.

Another 15 power projects under construction, with a planned capacity of 470 megawatts, were damaged.

Emotional scenes have unfolded outside the Nepal Electricity Authority’s headquarters in Kathmandu, where relatives of workers believed to be trapped have gathered to await news about them.

Sita Pandey, whose husband Jiblal was working in one of the tunnels, told local media: “I still have 50 percent hope that he is alive because there is an oxygen system in there.”

She revealed she last spoke to him on Wednesday morning, hours before the flood hit.

Desperately hoping he will be found soon, she added: ‘We can understand that the rescue operation is technically complex. But we cannot accept delays. Our people are in there. Every second counts for us.’

Bimal Sharma, a helicopter pilot who has been flying rescue missions since the disaster began, said he was shocked by the devastation in Timure, a border town near Tibet that he has known for years.

“It felt like I was flying over a completely different landscape,” he said.

Sharma said he has had little opportunity to speak to the people he rescued, but their expressions told him how deeply the disaster had affected them.

‘I see the pain in their eyes. It’s heartbreaking,” he said.

On the Chinese side, rescuers were working in areas affected by the mudslide, particularly in and around the Gyirong port border crossing, which was destroyed.

Some rescuers, aided by search dogs, looked for any sign of life in gaps among rocks and rubble.

Other teams used heavy machinery to try to reopen a key highway to Gyirong port, which would facilitate the delivery of equipment, personnel and supplies to the disaster area, according to Chinese state newspaper Global Times.

Hundreds of bodies, many unidentified, have been buried in shallow graves as they began to decompose in the humid weather on Nepal’s plains.

The aid needs are enormous. Entire communities have been wiped out, leaving families homeless by heavy rain or sheltered in temporary facilities.

“This is an unfolding disaster,” said U.N. Children’s Fund official Abiodun Banire, adding that the needs of the tens of thousands affected were enormous.

Roads have been washed away, power stations destroyed and dozens of bridges destroyed.

“We continue to work on search, rescue and relief operations,” Karki said on Monday, as communications slowly improved. Police initially had to use drones to deliver messages to cut-off areas.

“Rescue teams have now reached most areas, by road or helicopter,” he added.

With morgues overflowing with the dead, Nepal has started burying some of the hundreds of bodies recovered after DNA samples were taken so that families can retrieve them later.

Kathmandu has appealed for international support, saying Nepal needs “more than a thousand” freezers to store bodies.

Distraught families, desperate for news of missing relatives, are watching images of bodies on screens in community centers in a bid to identify the dead.

Shobha Adhikary, in the southern Nepalese city of Bharatpur, told a local coordinator that she believed one image showed her childhood best friend.

“He certainly looks like him,” she said, showing a photo of a smiling middle-aged man.

“My husband and I are best friends with Rajkumar and his wife Geeta,” she said. Geeta has also been missing since Wednesday.

Nepal’s missing list includes 592 foreigners, including tourists who came to trek in the apparently serene mountains and Hindu pilgrims seeking spiritual peace at Tibet’s holy Mount Kailash.