Nepal flash floods live: Death toll hits 165 with more than 1,500 missing including UK, US and Canadian tourists

A second Indian Air Force aircraft carrying 37.5 tonnes of humanitarian aid, including food packets and medicines, has taken off for the flood-affected victims of Nepal.

“India remains in close and continuous touch with the Nepalese authorities. We will continue to strongly support the ongoing relief efforts,” Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar wrote on X.

The Dalai Lama said that he was praying for all those killed in devastating floods in Nepal and Tibet.

“I pray for all those who have lost their lives, and offer my sympathy and heartfelt condolences to the bereaved and to all those affected by this tragedy,” the Buddhist spiritual leader said in a statement this afternoon.

“Since this region has seen calamities in the past as well, these are certainly symptoms of a deeper underlying cause — whether climate change or other factors,” he added.

“I hope that appropriate follow-up measures will be taken, wherever possible, to help ensure that such disasters do not recur.”

Police in Nepal said they expect the death toll, already above 160, to rise further as search teams reach areas cut off since yesterday.

The Nepali army has deployed 2,000 military personnel for search and rescue operations in the area affected by the flash floods.

In the hardest-hit ‌districts, helicopters this morning were dropping tents, food and other emergency supplies provided by neighbouring India, according to Raja Ram Basnet, a spokesperson for Nepal’s army.

The Nepali troops have been deployed in areas including Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts.

Rescue teams were searching for hundreds of missing people along the Nepal-China border after a catastrophic and deadly torrent of floods and mud swept through several communities a day earlier following a glacial collapse.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority in Nepal said 826 people were missing and the death toll from the country’s flash floods rose to 165.

Nepalese authorities ramped up operations in the worst-affected districts of Nuwakot and Rasuwa.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV separately reported that 260 of the 558 missing people in Tibet were foreigners and two villagers were rescued. At least three people were killed as of this morning, it said.

Authorities in Nepal are now saying that at least 826 people have gone missing, including 529 foreign tourists.

Bibek Kumal, a 24-year-old Nepali labourer, was digging a 1.5 m deep toilet pit beside a newly constructed house when he heard a distinct hissing sound. Seconds later, a torrent of mud, water and rock tore through the site, sweeping him and everything nearby away.

Working in Bidur, downstream from the severely impacted Rasuwa district near Nepal‘s border with Tibet, Kumal was warned by four co-workers standing above who shouted at him to run. By the time he managed to scramble out, his colleagues had already fled.

“I started running. Then a wall of water came thundering down as if it was an earthquake,” Kumal said from his bed at Kathmandu’s National Trauma Centre, his brother Dinesh sitting beside him.