The death toll from the flash flood-devastated region of Nepal and Tibet has risen past 470, as rescue efforts continue on both sides of the Himalayan border.
The prime minister’s office in Nepal reported on Friday that 469 people were confirmed killed with 977 missing. At least three people were killed in Tibet and 558 remain missing, according to Chinese authorities.
Authorities in Nepal say 644 of the missing are foreigners. About 1,550 people have been rescued.
The disaster struck on Wednesday, when a glacier collapse sent a surge of ice, water, rock and mud down Himalayan river valleys, burying entire villages and destroying roads, bridges and hydropower plants.
Bishal Nath Upreti, president of the Nepal Centre for Disaster Management, told Al Jazeera that the situation was “extremely difficult” for those stranded in the disaster zone, with no roads to reach them.
“Almost 42km [26 miles} of road is completely wiped out, and, except for the helicopters, the rescuers cannot go there”, he said.
About 800 people have been rescued by helicopter and 700 by land, he said. Aid is being airlifted to survivors.
“They are very desperate now,” he said of those stranded. “It’s already over 72 hours now and people are really desperate for … shelter and food.”
Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said the number of missing is expected to increase.
China has deployed about 500 military and paramilitary personnel and sent Premier Li Qiang to supervise operations, she reported.
“That is very, very rare and it really gives us a sense of how urgent and how much of a priority this operation has become.”
‘Anxious ticking clock’
Nepal has deployed 30,000 security personnel to search remote valleys.
Rescue efforts are being complicated by fears that secondary flooding could impact the disaster zone.
Attention is turning to a newly-formed barrier lake straddling the Nepal-China border. Both countries have warned it is unstable and at risk of bursting.
Barrier lakes form when flooding or landslides block a river, trapping a growing body of water behind a natural dam of debris.
Chinese authorities warned that the lake held about two million cubic metres (70 million cubic feet) of water, and was expected to receive another three million cubic metres (106 million cubic feet) over the next three days.
Rescue and military teams trying to reach the border port of Gyirong, where buildings lie buried under mud one and a half metres deep, have been ordered to pause their work because of mudslide fears, Yu reports.
“What this also introduces is a sort of anxious ticking clock,” Al Jazeera’s reporter said, with teams racing to find survivors and recover bodies before more mud makes the operation increasingly dangerous.
Waiting for answers
The foreign ministry in Kathmandu said on Friday that Nepal did not require international assistance with the search.
“The offer for help is natural. Our security agencies are doing the search and rescue operation. For now we don’t require such help,” spokesperson Lok Bahadur Chhetri said.
Reporting from Kathmandu, Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez, said Nepal was not entirely spurning offers of help, but had decided on the advice of its military and police that it could handle initial rescue work.
“They have appealed for other forms of aid, for maybe cash disbursements, because obviously this is a mammoth task,” she said.
Standing near Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, she said crowds had gathered to inquire about missing loved ones.
“Everyone is fighting for answers, waiting for some glimmer of hope, and right now that’s hard to come by,” Fernandez said.
