As rescue efforts continue in Nepal following devastating floods, the death toll has risen to 675, with 2,498 people missing, according to Nepal’s Disaster Management Authority. At least seven were killed in Tibet, and 554 are missing.
CNN reported that the number of people who have died rose by more than 50 people over six hours — though there could be more.
“In living memory, we haven’t seen a mountain hazard event like this,” Kamal Kishore, the Special Representative of the United Nations’ Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, said Friday. “The impact on lives, livelihoods, buildings, infrastructure, bridges, hydroelectric projects, power generation is really immense. I think we are still coming to grips with the extent of the damage.”
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Almost 900 Nepali employees working on hydropower projects are unaccounted for, the Independent Power Producers’ Association said. Data shows 361 workers have been rescued as well, CNN wrote, though many employees are still trapped in construction sites and tunnels.
Nepalese officials requested experts from India and China to save these workers. Teams arrived in Nepal on Saturday, CNN wrote. Nepal Electricity Authority said at least 12 hydropower projects are now out of action because of flooding and another 15 that were under construction are affected.
Mass burials started in several districts, BBC Nepali said Saturday, but preserving them has become hard amid the catastrophe.
Dr. Sameer Kumar Adhikari, joint spokesperson of the Ministry of Health and Food Hygiene in Nepal, informed that the management of dead bodies has begun in accordance with national laws and international standards.
“Information has come that Chitwan and East Nawalparasi have started that work,” he said, per BBC Nepali. “The bodies are also being managed in the same manner in districts such as Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Tanahun, Kaski, Gorkha and others.”
The BBC wrote Nepali foreign minister Shisir Khanal asked for assistance from foreign governments to get freezers to preserve victims’ bodies.
“Hundreds of bodies have been found downstream,” Khanal said, adding that there’s a “risk of fast decomposition because these bodies have been in water for a long time.
Nepal, the foreign minister said, has “very limited” space to keep these bodies frozen.
A preliminary assessment from Chinese and Nepalese experts, as well as “official institutions,” found the disaster was triggered by the collapse of a “high-altitude glacier in Nepal,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Friday.
Researchers have said rising temperatures are accelerating glacier melt across the Himalayas, increasing the risk of collapses and sudden flooding.
On Saturday, Khanal addressed this, with The Guardian reporting that he talked about the “growing threat from climate change in the Himalayas.”
Khanal said he spoke to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who agreed to increase the sharing of “real-time hydrological data.”
In a statement, Wang said, China “shared crucial information with Nepal, including disaster area imagery, satellite and hydrological data, as well as early warnings about upstream barrier lakes.”
“China and Nepal are bound by mountains and rivers, sharing a common destiny,” Wang said.
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