Nepal Flood Death Toll Rises to 95 as Nearly 400 Tourists, Including Americans, Remain Missing Near Tibet

KATHMANDU, Nepal — The death toll from a massive flash flood that tore through Nepal’s northern border region with Tibet climbed to at least 95 on Wednesday, with nearly 400 people, including three U.S. nationals, still listed as missing, according to Nepali authorities.

Nepal Police spokesman Abi Narayan Kafle confirmed the rising toll to multiple news outlets Wednesday. “So far 95 deaths have been reported,” Kafle said, according to Al Jazeera, adding that 28 police personnel were also among those unaccounted for. Nepal’s prime minister’s office separately confirmed the death toll of 95, though officials had not yet released information regarding the nationalities of the victims, according to CBS News.

The scale of the missing has drawn significant international attention given the large number of foreign tourists caught in the disaster. According to the Nepal Tourism Board, 384 travelers were reported missing as of Wednesday, including 291 foreign nationals from countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, India and Malaysia, according to Al Jazeera. CBS News reported that at least three U.S. nationals were among 341 foreigners listed as missing, citing information gathered from tour companies operating in the affected region.

The disaster’s origins trace back to a sequence of natural events that unfolded within minutes of each other early Wednesday morning. According to CNN, the U.S. Geological Survey recorded a magnitude 4.4 earthquake along the Nepal-China border, north of Kathmandu, at 8:37 a.m. local time. Around the same time, what CNN described as an avalanche of ice and rock, more accurately characterized as a landslide, tore down a mountainside and into the Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhote Koshi River.

Saswata Sanyal, of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu, a regional climate organization, explained how that initial event triggered the broader catastrophe. The avalanche likely “blocked the (Bhotekoshi River) and released a sudden surge downstream,” Sanyal said, describing the chain reaction as a case of “cascading hazards,” in which events high in the icy mountains can rapidly translate into devastating flooding for towns and villages located far downstream.

Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal offered a similar account of the disaster’s cause. According to CBS News, Khanal said the flash flood was caused by an earthquake that triggered a large landslide, which in turn blocked the Bhote Koshi River before releasing a catastrophic surge of water.

The destruction has been extensive and widespread across the affected region. A health worker in Rasuwa district, one of the hardest-hit areas, described the scene to The National. “There is devastation everywhere we look. The settlements next to the river have been completely swept away,” the health worker said. CBS News reported that videos broadcast by regional news outlets and shared widely on social media showed violent torrents of water surging through mountain valleys and passes, tearing down bridges and dams and sweeping away entire buildings in their path.

Nepal’s critical infrastructure has suffered significant damage as a result of the flooding. The Nepal Electricity Authority confirmed that six of its major hydropower and transmission facilities were damaged in the disaster, according to CBS News. The National separately reported that the flooding disrupted electricity supplies affecting more than 12% of Nepal’s total national hydropower generation capacity, underscoring the scale of infrastructure impact extending well beyond the immediate loss of life and missing persons.

Nepal Police spokesman Kafle acknowledged that officials remain uncertain about the full scope of the destruction as search and rescue operations continue. “We do not exactly know the extent of damage, but the flood is big, and it could have damaged many settlements,” Kafle told the French news agency AFP, according to CBS News.

Across the border in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, the disaster has similarly caused significant loss of life. According to CNN’s live coverage of the crisis, three people have been confirmed killed in Tibet, with an additional 265 people reported missing, according to Chinese authorities. Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for “all-out” search and rescue efforts in response to the disaster, alongside calls for strengthening early warning systems to help prevent secondary disasters as recovery efforts continue, according to The National.

Officials in Nepal have cautioned that the confirmed death toll is likely to continue rising as recovery operations progress and the true scale of the disaster becomes clearer. According to CNN, authorities expect the toll to increase further once floodwaters recede and search teams are able to reach areas that remain inaccessible due to damaged roads, bridges and communication infrastructure throughout the affected mountainous border region.

The disaster adds to Nepal’s long and difficult history with monsoon-season flooding and landslide disasters, a recurring seasonal threat across the Himalayan nation. While Wednesday’s specific catastrophe was triggered by an earthquake-induced landslide rather than direct monsoon rainfall, Nepal has repeatedly faced major flooding disasters in recent years tied to its mountainous terrain, seasonal weather patterns and, according to climate researchers, an increasing frequency and severity of such events linked to broader climate change.

With search and rescue operations continuing on both sides of the Nepal-China border, and hundreds of people, including a significant number of foreign tourists, still unaccounted for, officials in both countries have indicated the coming days will remain critical for locating survivors and beginning to assess the full human and infrastructure toll of the disaster. International governments, including the United States, United Kingdom, India and Malaysia, are expected to continue closely monitoring the search efforts given the number of their citizens reported among the missing, as Nepali and Chinese authorities work to restore access to the remote, heavily damaged border region and provide clearer information regarding the fate of those still unaccounted for.