Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said 592 foreign nationals are among those missing. US State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said about 85 Americans remained unaccounted for as rescue operations continued.
The flooding, triggered by a glacier collapse in the Nepal-Tibet border region on Wednesday, has devastated communities and left rescuers struggling to reach affected areas.
“The disaster here is overwhelming,” Ferrin Cole, an operations director at the US-based Crisis Response International, told NBC News. He said the flood had destroyed entire communities and that rescue teams were working to deliver assistance as quickly as possible.
More than 90,000 people have been affected, according to the Nepal Red Cross, while Nepali officials said more than 10,400 people, including 277 foreign nationals, had been rescued.
The scale of the disaster has also overwhelmed morgues, with authorities reporting that some recovered bodies were beyond recognition.
China has separately reported 16 deaths and 546 missing people in Tibet, although it remains unclear whether some cases overlap with Nepal’s figures.
Meanwhile, a landslide-dammed lake near a border checkpoint is overflowing, complicating rescue efforts. Heavy rains in Nepal have also raised river levels and triggered fresh warnings for communities living along waterways.
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