More than 1,500 people have now been confirmed missing after deadly flash floods hit the Nepal-Tibet border early Wednesday, sweeping away roads, bridges and entire villages. At least 270 people have died in Nepal. In China, authorities say two people have been rescued and the death toll stands at three.
The U.S. Geological Survey says a glacial collapse triggered the floods, after initially reporting the event as a 4.4 magnitude earthquake.
Chinese surveillance footage from the Tibetan side of the border shows a huge wall of mud and debris crashing over buildings and engulfing roads as people desperately try to flee the torrent.
Residents have described their terror as great waves of water barreled down valleys, burying people and homes under the mud. Santa Tamang, a 25-year-old university student who lives in one river valley, spoke to NPR by phone.
Tamang said her family was able to rush to higher ground, carrying her elderly grandmother with them, but their home was washed away. "Everything is gone. My childhood, my family, my community," Tamang said.
Nepal is a popular tourist destination, and many of those missing are foreign nationals. According to the latest figures from the Nepal Tourism Board, 644 overseas nationals have not yet been located. They include 65 U.S. citizens, 178 people from India, 33 from the United Kingdom, 35 from Australia and 25 from Canada.
Chinese officials say 558 people are missing on the Tibet side of the border, including 260 foreign nationals.
Many of the missing are Hindu pilgrims, who were journeying to Kailash Mansarovar, a high-altitude site in Tibet revered by Hindus and Buddhists.
Rescue efforts, still in their first stages, have been hampered by the fact that the floodwaters have washed away entire roads. Riaz Lodhi, country director for the World Food Programme in Nepal, said rescue workers are trying to dig people out of the mud and that the Nepalese government is deploying helicopters to help.
"It's all happening in the mountainous region where road access is always challenging, but under these circumstances, as far as we know at the moment, it is impossible," Lodhi told NPR.
Dhruba Gurmachhan from the aid group World Vision says they expect more than 30,000 households to be impacted by the disaster.
Aid workers say Nepalese authorities are well-practiced in disaster response, having learned from Nepal's devastating 2015 earthquake, which killed more than 1,000 people. But Gurmachhan says these floods are unlike anything anyone has seen before.
"We are very much worried about children, women and people with a disability. They are in the open sky. They don't have anything to eat, they don't have sanitation," Gurmachhan told NPR.
International response
The U.S. State Department said it would be providing $500,000 in aid and that it was deploying a disaster response adviser to the region to support response efforts. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X, "We express our solidarity and are united in prayer for the Nepali people following the devastating floods."
India's foreign ministry said it had sent some of its helicopters to Nepal, dropping tents, food and other emergency supplies.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said U.N. teams and partners were mobilizing supplies and personnel in Nepal to support communities affected by the disaster.
U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said he had spoken to Nepal's foreign minister and "expressed Britain's solidarity and deepest condolences for the disaster that has occurred."
He said Britain had offered "financial, search and rescue and other help to aid the disaster response."
Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government was "closely following the situation" and "stands ready" to provide support.
Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrote on X, "We are aware of a number of Australians in the area and officials are urgently working to confirm their welfare. We are liaising with local authorities as well as tour operators."
Experts point to climate change
The region saw similar flash floods in July 2025, when a glacial lake in Tibet saw significant quantities of ice melt and then overflow because of high temperatures.
Climate change experts say the increasingly unstable ice system in the Himalayan mountain range threatens communities, infrastructure and water supplies across one of the world's most densely populated regions.
Mohammad Farooq Azam from the environmental advocacy group International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), which monitors Asia's high mountains, told NPR the Himalaya region is warming faster than the global average.
The warmer temperatures are melting and thus destabilizing many of the 60,000 glaciers there, triggering these kinds of avalanches. This is becoming more urgent, Azam says, as these disasters become more frequent, but experts lack data to better identify the areas that are most at risk of future disasters like this.
Arun Bhakta Shrestha, a hydrologist who focuses on the science of glaciers in the Himalayas, told NPR that across the region, the frequency of these deadly events has been increasing. This, though, was the worst such disaster he could ever recall.
"Everything, probably directly or indirectly, is pointing the finger towards global warming."
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