Nearly 1.500 people are missing, most of them tourists, authorities have said, after devastating floods hit Nepal and Tibet, sweeping through valleys and destroying entire villages, with the preliminary death toll at 165, the Guardian reports.
Rescuers are racing to find the missing people in the mountainous region popular with hikers and pilgrims, including hundreds of nationals from India, the United States, Britain, Australia and Canada.
Horrifying videos from Wednesday's event showed a huge wall of water crashing down on the border as people tried to escape. Trucks were overturned and houses, roads and power projects were swept away into Nepal, while authorities in Tibet said they feared "massive casualties" after a landslide hit a land border crossing.
In the affected areas, houses, trees and vehicles were flooded or buried in landslides. Helicopters hovered over the area all day, collecting survivors.
Devastating CCTV footage from the Chinese side of the Nepal-China border shows the massive flood sweeping through the area with incredible force, giving a stark glimpse of how suddenly it was struck. pic.twitter.com/s2eVfOzd7G
- Everest Today (@EverestToday) August 26, 2026
Nearly 600 foreigners were among the 826 people missing in Nepal, police and tourism authorities said. The missing included 177 from India, 63 from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 25 from Canada.
Chinese state media reported that at least 558 people were missing on the Tibetan side of the border, at least 260 of whom were foreign nationals.
Police in Nepal said 165 bodies had been recovered late Wednesday. Chinese state media reported three deaths on the Tibetan side of the border.
Many of the victims were on a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar, a high-altitude site in Tibet that is revered by Hindus and Buddhists, among others.
Initial reports from Nepalese authorities initially suggested that an earthquake in the area may have caused the lower part of the glacier to collapse and trigger the flooding. But the U.S. Geological Survey later said that what was initially reported as a magnitude 4,4 earthquake was a seismic shock generated by the collapse of glacial rocks and ice and a debris flow. "There was no earthquake."
An initial study of satellite imagery by Planet Labs showed that a landslide of ice and rocks caused a debris-filled flood in the Lhende River, about 20 km northeast of the Rasuvagadi border crossing between Nepal and China, Nepal's national disaster management authority said. Experts say the risk of such events is heightened by the extreme topography of the Himalayas.
People shared heartbreaking stories of how they managed to survive. "I started running. Then a wall of water came down with a thunderous roar as if it were an earthquake," said Bibek Khumal, a labourer working downstream in the worst-hit Rasuwa district, near Nepal's Himalayan border with China's Tibet.
From his hospital bed, Kumal said the torrent swept him downstream through mud and debris, but he survived by clinging to a mango tree. "If it hadn't been for the mango tree, I would have been swept to my death," he said.
"It was a huge mudslide coming straight towards us. As it got closer, it got higher and higher," said Keshav Prasad Baral, a 68-year-old survivor who was being treated at a small hospital.
"I tried to grab my wife's hand and take her to the terrace. But the mud carried her away. Four or five hours later, a helicopter came to rescue me. My wife is still somewhere under the mud. She's gone."
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), David Fisher, said that "entire villages and market areas have been wiped out."
