Rescue teams have resumed searching for hundreds of people still missing two days after catastrophic flash flooding struck the Nepal-China border region.
Efforts were briefly suspended on Friday after a debris-formed lake began overflowing, threatening communities already devastated by the initial disaster.
Narendra Pariyar, the most senior bureaucrat of the hard-hit Rasuwa district, said: “We have received a notice saying that the lake has broken its banks. We can see that the level of water in the river is rising.”
Residents in Nepal’s border district of Rasuwa were seen fleeing up hillsides as they braced for a surge in river levels, according to Reuters.
Authorities later said the immediate threat had eased but confirmed they were closely monitoring the situation for any further deterioration.
Nepal’s official death toll has climbed to 538, up sharply from 390 reported just a day earlier, while China revised its Tibet death count from three to five.
More than 1,400 people are still believed to be missing, including as many as 517 foreign nationals from more than 30 countries.
The International Red Cross estimated that over 93,000 people have been directly affected by the catastrophe and are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
Red Cross spokesman David Fisher said at a press briefing in Geneva that relief trucks had been blocked by the lake formed following the landslide, adding: “We’re of course very concerned about a secondary flood.”
Kamal Kishore, Head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, warned of further “cascading hazards that might unfold,” stating: “The disaster is not yet completely over. It is still unfolding in some ways.”
The World Health Organization warned of rising disease risks in the disaster’s wake, with spokesman Tarik Jasarevic noting that displacement and disrupted sanitation services “can increase the risk of infectious diseases, including diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses.”
Wednesday’s disaster was triggered by a glacial collapse that sent rock and meltwater surging into rivers below, leaving behind a barrier lake formed upstream by debris dams.
China’s Ministry of Water Resources said the lake held roughly 2 million cubic meters of water as of Thursday and was expected to receive another 3 million cubic meters over the following three days.
Chinese national broadcaster CCTV reported the lake’s barrier sat more than 10 kilometers from Gyirong Port, the border crossing engulfed by the initial flood, at an elevation roughly 1,000 meters above it.
China mobilized an eight-member engineering team to survey the lake by air and build 3D models of the site, with engineer Chen Hanxiao describing the terrain as exceptionally difficult following the glacial collapse.
Chen said the team’s general strategy was to dig a drainage channel at a lower point of the dam, with exact dimensions depending on calculations of water flow and the lake’s rate of fill.
Their survey found the lake to be approximately 150 meters long and 40 to 50 meters deep, with continuing rainfall forecast through the coming week further destabilizing surrounding soil and rock.
Nepal’s Foreign Ministry said it does not currently need foreign assistance for search-and-rescue operations, despite numerous offers from countries with nationals still unaccounted for in the disaster zone.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lok Bahadur Chhetri said: “The offer for help is natural. Our security agencies are doing the search and rescue operation. For now we don’t require such help.”
South Korea, which has nine nationals missing and 10 stranded, pledged $1 million in humanitarian aid and confirmed it would keep negotiating with Nepal over the possible deployment of its own disaster relief unit.
