Deadly floods in Nepal and Tibet: the death toll rises to 781

Nepalese rescuers on Sunday made their way to the entrance to a tunnel where authorities believe around a hundred workers working on a hydroelectric project are stuck.

Three days after the devastating flood that occurred on Wednesday in Nepal, on the border with China, the toll rose on Sunday August 30 to 781 dead and 2,502 missing, announced the Nepalese authority responsible for managing emergency situations. Added to this assessment is that carried out on the Chinese side, where the CCTV channel recorded 16 deaths and 546 missing, including two French people, who are among the four nationals identified by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The United States said it "now has approximately 85 Americans missing."

Nepalese rescuers fought their way to the entrance to the tunnel where authorities believe around 100 workers are stranded at the construction site of a hydroelectric dam, the government said. After "drilling an opening", they "attempted to make contact with its occupants, but they did not obtain a response". Rescuers must now widen the breach, notably with explosives, to allow rescuers equipped with oxygen masks to enter the tunnel and reach the construction site approximately 180 m away.

Nepalese authorities on Sunday called on rescue teams to exercise "caution" due to a new rise in water levels. “We have received reports that the flood flow of the Bhotekoshi River in Rasuwa district has further increased,” the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority warned.

Nepalese authorities said they had begun burying some of the hundreds of bodies found after the devastating mudslide, after taking DNA samples from each victim and marking the remains, so that families could later have them exhumed for funeral rites.