CANBERRA — The Australian government confirmed Friday that at least 39 Australians remain missing following catastrophic flash floods that tore through the Nepal-Tibet border region this week, as the death toll climbed past 469 and more than 1,400 people remained unaccounted for across both countries.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced the updated figure in a joint statement with International Development Minister Anne Aly, alongside news that Australia is rapidly mobilizing consular and humanitarian support, including a $5 million assistance package for affected communities. “We understand at least 39 Australians are among those reported missing,” the ministers said in the statement, adding that the missing Australians were part of separate pilgrimage and tour groups traveling in the region when the disaster struck.
The floods tore through mountain villages along the Nepal-Tibet frontier on Wednesday morning local time, in what authorities believe was triggered by a massive chunk of ice breaking away from a Himalayan glacier. Satellite imagery reviewed by disaster officials showed the ice and rock tumbling into a river below, sending a wall of water and debris crashing through settlements, trekking routes and a border crossing used by pilgrims traveling between Nepal and Tibet.
The scale of the disaster has grown sharply each day since. Nepal’s disaster management agency reported Thursday that 910 people remained unaccounted for on its side of the border, including at least 517 foreign nationals, while Chinese authorities said 558 people were missing in Tibet, among them 260 foreigners. Nepal Police put the confirmed death toll on their side of the border at 389 by early Friday, an increase of 30 from the previous count, with a further 466 people reported injured. By Friday, the combined death toll across Nepal and Tibet had surpassed 469, with more than 1,400 people still missing across both countries.
The number of missing Australians has risen steadily as authorities have worked to account for travelers in the affected region. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed Thursday that 34 Australians were unaccounted for, a figure that climbed to 39 by Friday as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade continued to verify the whereabouts of citizens believed to have been in the area.
Wong said earlier in the week that she had personally spoken with Australia’s ambassadors to both China and Nepal to convey the government’s support for the response effort. “The government’s priority is to confirm the whereabouts and welfare of these Australians,” Wong said. “We are currently deploying further DFAT personnel, including crisis response experts, to the region.”
A DFAT spokesperson said the department was working closely with local authorities and tour operators to establish the status of Australians believed to be in the affected area. “We are aware of a number of Australians in the area, and Australian officials are urgently working to confirm their welfare,” the spokesperson said. “We are liaising with local authorities as well as tour operators.” The department urged any Australians in the region to follow the advice of local authorities and directed families seeking information to DFAT’s 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre.
Australia is far from alone in accounting for missing nationals. The disaster has affected a broad cross-section of foreign travelers who were in the region for pilgrimages, trekking expeditions and tour groups. A Nepal Tourism Board spokesperson, Sunil Sharma, said earlier this week that 133 of the missing tourists were from India, many of them on a pilgrimage through the border region, while 47 were from the United States, 33 from Britain and 24 from Canada.
The United States has since revised its own missing-persons count sharply higher. A State Department spokesperson said Friday that 90 Americans were currently unaccounted for, though the department stressed it had not confirmed any American deaths. “We’re currently tracking 90 Americans who may be impacted by the flood, currently unaccounted for,” the spokesperson said, according to Agence France-Presse, adding that three Americans had been confirmed rescued.
The rising toll among foreign nationals underscores the popularity of the Nepal-Tibet border region among international travelers, many of whom pass through on pilgrimage routes connecting sacred sites in Tibet with trekking and tourism infrastructure on the Nepali side. The flash floods struck with little warning during peak travel season, catching pilgrims, hikers and tour groups in exposed mountain terrain with limited escape routes.
Rescue operations have continued across both sides of the border throughout the week, hampered by damaged roads, destroyed bridges and the remote, high-altitude terrain that characterizes the affected region. Nepali authorities have deployed military personnel, police and helicopters in an effort to reach survivors and recover the dead, while Chinese rescue teams have carried out parallel operations on the Tibetan side of the border.
Australia’s $5 million assistance package is intended to support both the immediate emergency response and the recovery needs of affected communities, according to the joint statement from Wong and Aly, though the ministers did not detail Friday how the funding would be distributed or which organizations would administer it on the ground.
The disaster has drawn comparisons to previous major flooding events in the region, though officials and aid organizations have said the scale of missing persons — spanning dozens of nationalities — appears unusually large, reflecting both the volume of international travelers in the area and the sudden, glacier-triggered nature of the flooding, which left little time for warning or evacuation.
As search and rescue operations continue, Australian officials have cautioned that the number of missing citizens could still shift in either direction as authorities work through the difficult task of accounting for travelers who may have been off predictable routes, out of mobile phone contact, or registered under tour groups whose full passenger manifests are still being confirmed.
For now, families of the missing Australians have been directed to DFAT’s Consular Emergency Centre, reachable at 1300 555 135 domestically or +61 2 6261 3305 from overseas, as the government continues working to determine the fate of the 39 citizens still unaccounted for in one of the deadliest natural disasters to strike the Himalayan border region in recent memory.
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