Nepal wants technical help for flood, billions of dollars as bad weather hampers rescue
Nearly 3,000 people are still missing – about 2,426 in Nepal and at least 554 in Tibet's Gyirong County – including at least 540 foreigners, many of them Hindu pilgrims from India
Highlights:
- Nepal seeks foreign technical help for tunnel rescues, DNA testing and restoring transport
- Bodies being recovered decomposed, unidentifiable in some districts
- Nepal needs $4 billion to $5 billion to rebuild, finance minister says
- Risk from lake straddling Nepal, Tibet reduces, China says
Nepal suspended search and rescue today (29 August) due to bad weather and said it needs foreign technical help to cope with the devastating flood that tore through an area bordering Tibet.
The impoverished Himalayan nation of 30 million people will also need about $4 billion to $5 billion to rebuild after the destruction caused by Wednesday's flood, the finance minister told Reuters.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Triggered by a glacier collapse, the huge torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris hurtled through mountain river systems on Wednesday, killing at least 626 people in Nepal and seven in China's Tibet as it swallowed buildings, bridges and power stations in its path.
Nearly 3,000 people are still missing – about 2,426 in Nepal and at least 554 in Tibet's Gyirong County – including at least 540 foreigners, many of them Hindu pilgrims from India.
Decomposed, unrecognisable bodies to be buried
"Search and rescue operations have been temporarily halted because it is raining and the weather is foggy," Narendra Pariyar, the top bureaucrat for the badly hit Rasuwa district, told Reuters.
The focus is on arranging land transport to move rescued pilgrims to the capital city, Kathmandu, he said.
With the deaths in the deluge having occurred three days ago, authorities said some bodies now being recovered had decomposed beyond recognition. They would be buried after legal formalities because of health risks and a fear of epidemics.
"DNA samples will be collected, and the bodies will be buried in an open space," the Chitwan district administration said in a notice.
In Kathmandu, families of those missing gathered outside Maharajgunj Medical Campus, where some bodies were taken. Many were trying to identify relatives through photographs of the bodies brought there, with the pictures pasted or strung on the gate and boundary walls.
Officials said only seven of 49 bodies brought to the hospital had been identified.
Lake overflow risk reduces
Authorities briefly suspended rescue operations on Friday as well when a lake, formed across the Nepal-China border after the flood, began overflowing into Nepal's Lhende Khola and Trishuli rivers.
By Saturday, the risk of the lake overflowing had reduced, Chinese authorities said. Satellite images suggested the water in it had been slowly flowing through, decreasing the reservoir gradually, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
That lake is one of two upstream of the flood zone that Nepal is monitoring. Flood risks will persist until both fully drain, an official warned.
Nepal's Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said the country did not need help with search and rescue operations but required assistance in rescuing people stuck in tunnels, opening transport and communication lines in places where bridges were destroyed, identification of dead bodies, DNA testing and storing bodies for longer durations.
"We have already made requests for such specialised services and technical assistance in areas where we don't have enough expertise and technical know-how," he told Reuters late on Friday.
New Delhi has sent three flights carrying about 60 tons of relief material to Nepal, including blankets, medicines, food and water purification tablets, and plans to also dispatch a tunnel rescue team and a medical team.
India has also offered its disaster response force and prefabricated bridges along with technical teams to help restore connectivity, the foreign ministry said.
Beijing has called for emergency aid to disaster-hit areas of Nepal and international rescue cooperation, without elaborating on what China is sending to Nepal.
Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle told Reuters that Kathmandu's initial estimate was that it would need between $4 billion and $5 billion to rebuild.
"This is just an estimate. Loss and damage is being assessed," he said.
Authorities in China have also been racing to trace more than 500 missing people after the flood.
Rescuers on Friday reached the worst-hit Gyirong border crossing complex, traversing mountains and valleys, and using ropes to navigate forests and cliffs after roads to the complex, hemmed in by steep Himalayan slopes, were destroyed.
Surveillance camera footage from the crossing showed huge torrents of water and debris engulfing buildings there when the flood hit, as people tried to flee.
