Chinese rescuers find ‘nothing but ruins’ at border crossing as Nepal seeks help to ID and store the dead

A Chinese rescue team has reached the all-but-obliterated Gyirong border crossing complex for the first time and found “nothing but ruins” as Nepal and China continue their arduous rescue operations in the flood-hit Himalayas. Surveillance camera footage from the worst-hit Gyirong border crossing complex showed huge torrents of water and debris on Wednesday engulfing buildings and people trying to flee. Only ⁠on Friday were rescuers able to reach the area.

State media reported that the Chinese team of 21 rescuers and a search-and-rescue dog crossed mountains and valleys and used ropes to navigate forests and cliffs after roads to the complex, hemmed in by steep Himalayan slopes, were destroyed. Zou Mingqi, a rescue worker, said: “There was no road … it was all virgin forest and sheer cliffs.” At the complex, “as far as the eye could ⁠see, there was nothing but ruins”. The glacier collapse that unleashed a deadly torrent through Himalayan mountain river systems has killed at least 626 people ⁠in Nepal and seven in China’s Tibet.

The number of people missing was revised up to nearly 3,000 on Saturday: 2,426 in Nepal and 554 in Tibet. Amid the deepening crisis, Nepal has now said it needs foreign ⁠help in specialised and technical areas in which it does not have expertise, but not in search and rescue. On ⁠Friday, Nepal’s foreign ministry had said that Kathmandu could manage ​the rescue ​efforts on its own for ​now and declined foreign involvement.

The areas in which Nepal is seeking help include opening transport and communication services in places where bridges have been destroyed, identification of dead bodies, DNA testing, rescuing people stuck in tunnels, and storing bodies for longer durations, the foreign minister, Shisir Khanal, said late on Friday. Khanal said ​there was no ​need for assistance in general search and rescue which was being done by Nepali rescuers. Nepal has requested that its neighbours, India and ​China, provide bailey bridges to reopen transport and communication in an area where about two dozen bridges have been destroyed.

So far, India has sent three flights carrying about 60 tons of relief material to Nepal, including blankets, medicines, food and water purification tablets, ⁠and a specialised tunnel rescue team. Rescuers – including army personnel and police – have been clawing through mud and using drilling equipment to reach more than 100 people trapped inside a hydropower tunnel in Rasuwa. More than 350 people have already been evacuated from the site under “extremely risky” conditions and the office of Nepal’s prime minister said the rescue effort had become “extremely challenging” due to adverse weather.

China has called for emergency aid to disaster-hit areas and international rescue cooperation, without elaborating on what China is sending to Nepal. Nepal is continuing to monitor two barrier lakes upstream of the flood zone, with an official warning that flood risks will persist until both lakes fully drain. Satellite imagery showed the second lake growing larger with no visible outlet, raising concerns that water pressure could still be building.