NUWAKOT, Nepal — Most arrive with nothing except the clothes they are wearing.
As rescue efforts in communities buried by catastrophic flash floods along the border between Nepal and China entered their fourth day Saturday, authorities continued finding survivors and transporting them to safety. At relief centers, as some arrive, families wait anxiously for news of their loved ones as the death toll and the number of people unaccounted for continued to rise.
After Nepali authorities updated their figures Saturday, the combined toll in Nepal and Tibet rose to 633 dead and nearly 3,000 people missing. Chinese authorities have reported seven deaths and more than 550 missing.
In Nuwakot, one of the Nepali districts devastated by the floods, helicopters resumed operations before noon Saturday after poor weather temporarily hampered aerial rescue activities.
Some helicopters were loaded with boxes and bags of aid, including clothes, instant noodles, crackers and rice. Others returned from the flood-hit areas carrying survivors.
An older man was carefully helped off one helicopter, while a soldier carried an older woman on his back to a medical tent. There, medics checked her blood pressure, breathing and heartbeat, as well as her teeth and gums.
About a dozen people emerged from another helicopter. Soldiers carried several babies who had also been evacuated.
The evacuees had been brought from the nearby community of Trishuli.
Families begin to lose hope
In Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, relatives and friends gathered outside the main government hospital from early morning, desperately searching for news of loved ones who remain missing after the incident.
Many shuffled between the help desk and the hospital notice board, clutching photographs and scanning injured patients’ lists in the hope of finding them.
Dil Maya Lama stood weeping outside the help desk at the hospital, searching for any information about her missing brother. She travelled from Ramechhap district on Saturday in search of her 26-year-old brother, a driver for a hydropower company in Rasuwa.
“I came here with the hope that I might find him,” she said. “There is no information about him.”
Nelza Moktan anxiously sought information about her missing cousin, who also worked as a driver in Rasuwa.
“I feel hopeless. It has already been four days,” she said.
Families covered hospital walls with posters showing missing relatives, displaying photographs and contact numbers in a desperate appeal for any clue that could bring them home. Nearby, officials had also pasted photographs of bodies yet to be identified in hopes they could be recognized by families or friends.
Gajendra Rawat, a security official at the hospital help desk, said families had so far registered around 1,600 missing persons since the disaster struck. “People are coming from all parts of Nepal,” he said.
Back in Nuwakot, military personnel taped sheets of paper listing dozens of missing people to a wall at a relief center, prompting families to crowd around and search for their relatives.
Some scanned the lists, took photos and wiped away tears as they looked through the names.
Outside, people walked along mud-covered streets past signs of the disaster. On one street, a truck was stuck in the mud with its bed raised in the air.
Rescuers battle to find survivors at disaster-hit areas
Search and rescue efforts continued at several locations in Nepal and China’s Tibet, including the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project in Nepal’s Rasuwa district and the severely damaged Gyirong border crossing on the Chinese side.
Nepali Army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet said rescue efforts would continue at the hydropower construction site, where authorities believe more than 100 people are trapped in a tunnel filled with thick mud.
Basnet said rescuers had used baskets and ropes to reach some people, but the operation remained difficult because of 4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 meters) of mud and the limited number of places where helicopters could land.
He said rescue teams had also been forced to relocate temporarily when authorities issued warnings about possible further flooding.
Rescuers have been on high alert for more flooding from a new lake that formed high up in the Himalayan mountains after the initial floods Wednesday. Experts warned that the lake, created after a glacier collapse that triggered the floods, was starting to overflow.
Monitoring data from the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources showed late Friday that the lake had dwindled in size. The water level dropped by 10 meters (32 feet) from the high point on Thursday morning, Chinese broadcaster CCTV said.
Aid trucks could be seen traveling from Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, toward the affected areas.
Search continues at devastated China-Nepal border crossing
The broadcaster was showing Saturday images of rescuers getting to Gyirong Port, the hard-hit border crossing with Nepal. Some reached the area by foot and via rafts. Some were dropped down from drones flown to the area. “Anyone, anyone?” rescuers yelled, according to footage by the broadcaster.
It was not immediately known how many people were at the border checkpoint building when the floods hit.
On Saturday, Nepal’s disaster agency said the death toll had climbed to 626 with 2,426 people missing in the country. There was little information on survivors on the Chinese side, where the death toll rose to seven Friday as state media showed evacuations of villages and leaders’ efforts to direct the relief response.
More than 3,700 people have been rescued in Nepal so far. China's state media said 554 people were missing on the Chinese side. Hundreds of the missing are foreigners who were in the area to work, trek or make a pilgrimage to a sacred peak.
___
Kafle reported from Kathmandu, Nepal. Associated Press journalists Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Sibi Arasu in Bengaluru, India; Upendra Mansingh in Nuwakot district, Nepal; Aijaz Hussain in New Delhi, India; and Didi Tang in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
