Nepal flash flood: 270 bodies recovered with hundreds more missing – latest updates

Britain has pledged £5 million and offered to send emergency responders to Nepal following the “devastating” flash floods there, prime minister Andy Burnham has said.

Speaking to journalists during a visit to South Wales, the Prime Minister said:

It’s a devastating picture that is emerging from what has happened in Nepal.

Scenes that we’ve never seen the like before, I don’t think, certainly the scale of the devastation.

So there is immediate action being taken. We are deploying consular support staff to the region so that British nationals will be able to access support 24/7. An offer has been made of emergency responders to head to the region but that’s obviously a matter for the Nepalese government.

But also we’ve offered £5 million to help with that response effort.

Obviously, there are a number of British nationals who currently are thought to be missing and we’ll be providing all the support we can to their families in what is a very distressing and devastating situation.

A total ⁠of ⁠270 ​bodies have been ⁠found by authorities in ⁠Nepal ​after ‌a ‌torrential flood swept ‌through the Himalayan border areas ‌of the country and China’s ​Tibet, Reuters reports, citing what Nepal’s police ⁠said in ​a post ​on ​X.

Climate change is leading to conditions that can destabilise high-mountain rock and ice, strengthening prospects for disasters such as this week’s Himalayan flood along the border between Nepal and China’s Tibet, scientists say.

While the exact cause of Wednesday’s disaster is still being analysed, scientists say it probably began with a massive ice-rock avalanche on the northern slopes of ​Nepal’s Langtang Lirung peak into the Lhende Khola river on the Tibetan ‌side.

Experts caution against describing climate change as the sole, immediate trigger for Wednesday’s collapse, though they say that rising temperatures and melting glaciers probably played a role in the disaster.

Simon Cox, chief scientist at the Mountains to Sea programme at Earth Sciences New Zealand, said:

Climate change is generating conditions that can destabilise high-mountain ⁠rock and ice.

That in turn makes collapses and cascading hazards of the kind seen this week more frequent, he added.

At least 168 people are dead and people from more than 30 countries are missing after the flash floods in Nepal and China.

Authorities in Nepal and China countries have reported more than 160 deaths and over 1,300 people missing. The number of missing may vary across agencies due to differences in how they collected data, when it was reported and how it was verified, according to AP news agency.

Nearly 100 ⁠Chinese nationals were missing in Nepal in ⁠the ⁠area ​affected by a massive mudslide and flooding, ⁠China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday.

Missing ⁠foreigners on the ​Chinese ‌side include ‌tourists, pilgrims and other personnel, ‌and China is in close communication with Nepal on search and rescue while informing relevant ‌embassies of the situation, foreign ministry spokesperson ​Lin Jian said at a regular press conference in Beijing

As the search and rescue continues, here are some of the latest images.

Scores of Hindu pilgrims from across the world are among those missing after deadly floods swept through the Nepal-Tibet border region, popular Indian spiritual leader Sadhguru said.

The Hindu guru, whose real name is Jagdish Vasudev, posted an emotional video message from Tibet on his social media accounts, with several million followers.

In the statement, he said 80 pilgrims were at the Nepal-China border immigration office when the flood hit on Wednesday, he said in a post alongside a terrifying clip of a surveillance video from the Chinese side of the frontier, when a wall of mud and debris crashed over the border building.

Of the pilgrims, 22 are from the United States, 12 from Canada, 11 from Australia, nine from the United Kingdom, 4 from Germany, 3 from France, 3 from Nepal, 2 from The Netherlands, 2 from New Zealand, Spain and Singapore, 1 from Finland, Hungary, Israel, Lithuania, Philippines, Portugal, Russia and South Africa. He added that 34 of the pilgrims were men, and 46 women. These claims have not yet been independent verified.

He said:

Literally, the entire group was there in the building, this is a terrible and extraordinary event.

All phones are off, telecommunications are down, roads are blocked, we are unable to go there.

The pilgrims were part of several Hindu groups organised by Isha Foundation of Sadhguru, who had been visiting the snow-capped Mount Kailash in Tibet, sacred also to Tibetan Buddhists.

The pilgrimage to Kailash and Lake Mansarovar is organised annually by India’s foreign ministry with Chinese authorities. It restarted in 2025 for Indians for the first time since the 2020 clash.

Here’s a snapshot of the latest developments:

• More than 1,000 people including almost 800 foreigners are missing across Nepal and Tibet, authorities say, after a wall of mud and rock collapsed into a Himalayan river, sending catastrophic flash floods through towns and valleys.

• Rescuers in Nepal used helicopters to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands ⁠cut off after Wednesday morning’s disaster.

• Police said they expected the death toll to rise beyond 165 as more bodies were recovered.

• Almost 500 foreigners were among 826 people missing in Nepal, police and tourism ⁠officials said. Among the missing tourists from more than two dozen countries, 177 were from India, 63 from the US, 34 from Australia, 33 from the UK and 25 from Canada.

• The count of missing in Tibet’s Gyirong county was 558, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday, including 260 foreign nationals. China said the death toll stayed at three.

• Verified videos showed crushing ⁠masses of water and debris sweeping away dozens of people at a border crossing in Gyirong. Homes, roads and power projects were washed away in Nepal as the flows travelled downstream.

• More than 5,000 Nepalese army and police rescue personnel joined the rescue effort that retrieved 125 people on Thursday, including 20 foreigners, an army spokesperson said.

• Nepalese prime minister Balendra Shah left by road for Bidur in one of the worst affected districts of Nuwakot to assess the flood situation, his office said on social media.

• The US Geological Survey said a glacial collapse caused seismic activity and catastrophic impacts in Nepal and Tibet. Seismic activity initially reported as an earthquake “was instead a glacial collapse and debris flow” that “caused subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream”, the agency said on Thursday..

• Chinese authorities have identified risks from a still-dammed lake located in Gyirong, upstream from the mudslide and flood-stricken Tibet-Nepal border crossing, that could significantly complicate rescue efforts in the mountainous site, CCTV reported on Thursday.

• Many of the victims were making a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar, a high-altitude site in Tibet revered by Hindus and Buddhists among others.

• The US State Department said it was providing assistance of $500,000 and sending a disaster response adviser.
  With agencies

Rescuers are searching for dozens of British nationals who are among those missing and feared dead in Nepal after the devastating flash flooding.

The number of missing had risen from 403 to 826, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority in Nepal said on Thursday, and 165 bodies had been recovered. On Wednesday the Nepal tourism board said 33 UK citizens were among the then 341 foreign nationals unaccounted for.

Kalpana Malla, from Nepal’s Nuwakot district, told BBC News: “My family members were swept away by the flood in front of my eyes.”

She said her father, mother, sister and her sister’s children were all swept away by the floods. She added:

They could not escape the flood, there was no chance at all.

This flood took everything, but my son and I climbed the rooftop of a house and survived, but couldn’t explain how.

Rajan Shrestha, the mayor of Bidur municipality, told the Times that he had “never seen such a massive flood in my life” and estimated about 400 people may have been swept away. He added:

And it came so fast. We could not evacuate all the people from the main town.”

Tour operator Alpine Eco Trek said a 13-year-old girl was among the missing British nationals, as well as two Irish citizens, PA Media reported.

Among the missing British nationals were three men aged 65, 64, and 52, and seven women aged 44, 47, 51, 60, 63, 63, and 65, according to travel logs obtained by the news agency.

Prime minister Andy Burnham said the government would do “everything we can” to support British nationals in Nepal after the floods.

The US Geological Survey is saying a huge glacial collapse caused the catastrophic flash floods in the Himalayan border region of Nepal ⁠and Tibet.

Here Mark Saunokonoko, Nick Evershed and Mike Hohnen trace what occurred using video footage, maps and images including satellite views.

Australia’s foreign minister ⁠has said at least 34 Australians in Nepal ⁠are missing but information there is “very limited”.

Penny Wong said:

We understand these ‌Australians are part of separate pilgrimage and tour groups.

At this stage, access and information are very limited given the scale of disaster … we are urgently seeking to confirm the welfare and whereabouts of Australians.

Himalayan Glacier Trekking, a tourism agency operating in the area, confirmed 15 of the missing ‌Australians were on a religious tour to Mount Kailash it was organising. The group also included people from India, ​the US, Canada and Singapore.

All 15 were ​Indian-Australians, with the ​youngest an 11-year-old boy, the tour operator said.

More than 1,000 people have now been declared missing after a catastrophic flash flood in Nepal and Tibet, the majority of which are tourists.

Nepal’s disaster agency has said 823 people remain out of contact on Thursday, more than 24 hours after the disaster hit. The 823 included at least 579 tourists, both Nepali and foreigners, it said in an update.

At least 165 people are confirmed killed, in both Nepal and in China, where a further 558 people are reported missing.

It was not immediately certain the numbers of missing were entirely separate or if any had been counted twice in the two countries’ tallies.

The US government has promised to provide $500,000 in emergency assistance to Nepal, the state department said.

The United States extends its deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives in the devastating flash floods in the Rasuwa district of Nepal.

In a message on X, secretary of state Marco Rubio added his support, saying: “We express our solidarity and are united in prayer for the Nepali people following the devastating floods.”