(VIDEO) Nepal-China Flood Death Toll Surpasses 1000 as Officials Warn of Further Glacier Collapse Risk

The death toll from catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-China border passed 1,000 on Tuesday, authorities said, as China warned of a continued “major risk” of further glacier collapses and landslides even as rescue teams pressed deeper into remote areas cut off since last week’s disaster.

Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority reported 987 confirmed deaths as of Tuesday, with 3,916 people still listed as missing, including 583 foreign nationals, according to Euronews. In Tibet, Chinese authorities reported 16 deaths and 546 people still missing as of their most recent update. At least 11,814 people have been rescued so far in Nepal, according to the country’s disaster agency.

China’s Ministry of Water Resources said Monday there remains an ongoing threat of further collapses along the Cuojian River in Nepal, a waterway that flows into the Purepuqiang River in Tibet, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The ministry added there is also a risk that additional landslides could cause a new barrier lake to form downstream in Tibet, adding to the hazards facing rescue crews and remaining residents in the region.

The disaster was triggered when a glacier collapsed at Langtang Lirung, on the Nepalese side of the border, at an altitude of roughly 5,200 meters on Aug. 26. The resulting surge of ice, rock and meltwater traveled 22 kilometers down a mountain valley and reached the Gyirong Port border crossing in just seven minutes, according to calculations by Jeffrey Kargel, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, who found the flow moved at an average speed of roughly 193 kilometers per hour during that initial stretch. The collapse itself registered as a magnitude 5.2 seismic event, detectable by seismometers worldwide, according to Wikipedia’s summary of scientific findings on the disaster.

High-water marks examined on the mountainside opposite Gyirong Port showed floodwaters had reached more than 60 meters at their peak, roughly the height of a 20-story building, according to estimates from rescuers cited by CCTV. Rivers in some of the affected valleys rose by as much as 9 meters within just half an hour of the initial collapse, according to earlier reporting from Yahoo News.

Weather conditions have continued to complicate rescue operations. The China Meteorological Administration warned Monday of additional rain expected in Gyirong county over the following three days, cautioning that the precipitation could make roads along key rescue routes slippery and further hamper both search efforts and transport logistics. Zhang Taiyuan, a weather presenter with the administration, urged rescue and relief vehicles operating in the area to exercise extra caution given the deteriorating conditions.

More than 60 rescuers trekked for over 10 hours through mountainous terrain to reach the disaster’s core area on Sunday, according to CCTV, and have since searched roughly 40,000 square meters of the affected zone twice. Yao Xueqin, deputy head of a fire and rescue unit deployed to the region, said search teams have so far focused on clearing surface debris and will begin digging deeper into affected areas during later phases of the operation.

Efforts to reopen a critical stretch of national highway leading to Gyirong Port have also advanced. As of 4 p.m. Monday local time, crews had cleared and reopened several hundred meters of previously blocked road, leaving approximately 1.1 kilometers still to clear before reaching the border port, according to CCTV, which described the effort as having entered its “final push.” A temporary emergency communications base station near the Gyirong Port border gate became operational Sunday, allowing repair crews to reestablish contact with rescue teams working in the immediate disaster zone for the first time since communications were severed by the initial collapse.

Among those still missing, 261 are foreign nationals, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua, including 104 from Nepal, 49 from India, 33 from Latvia and 18 from the United States. Families on both sides of the border have continued posting on social media seeking information about missing relatives and friends who were near the Gyirong Port crossing at the time the disaster struck.

The catastrophe has renewed attention on the broader challenges of monitoring and issuing early warnings for high-altitude glacial hazards across the Himalayan border region. Scientists told the Chinese outlet Shangguan News that while satellite imagery can help map glaciers and glacial lakes over time, sudden or small-scale changes remain difficult to detect in real time, and that remote areas frequently lack the reliable communications infrastructure needed for effective ground-based monitoring. China’s foreign ministry said Monday it has continued sharing disaster-area imagery, satellite and hydrological data, along with early warnings related to the upstream barrier lake, with Nepalese authorities as the two countries work to manage the ongoing crisis.