Death toll from floods in Nepal exceeds 1,000, nearly 4,500 missing

(Central News Agency, Nuwakot, Nepal, comprehensive foreign news report on the 1st) Massive flash floods and landslides occurred in the border area between Nepal and Tibet last month. The death toll exceeded the 1,000 mark today. Chinese and Nepalese teams are continuing to search for survivors, including dozens of people who may be trapped in a hydroelectric tunnel.

Agence France-Presse reported that a high-altitude glacier collapse in the Himalayas triggered a flash flood composed of icy water, rocks and debris on the 26th of last month. Rolling floods rushed down, destroying entire settlements and digging a path of destruction across Nepal. Nearly 4,500 people are still missing.

Nepalese rescue teams are now risking their lives in a race against time, digging, drilling and blasting to try to rescue about 100 hydropower workers believed to be trapped in multiple tunnels.

So far, search and rescue workers have pulled out only bodies and no survivors from the silt-blocked tunnel.

"Our search and rescue operations are focused on the tunnel and are still ongoing. Our soldiers have also been sent to collect the bodies and prevent the spread of the disease," Nepal Army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told AFP today.

Due to insufficient morgues in Nepal, authorities have begun burying hundreds of unidentified remains after collecting DNA samples. At least 17 bodies were also recovered from downstream rivers in India.

Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah described the disaster as "unimaginable and heartbreaking".