Nepal Flood Rescues Rise to 321 as More Than 100 Foreign Trekkers Remain Stranded on the Manaslu Trail
Kathmandu — The flash flood in Nepal's central Gorkha district that GSM reported on October 11 brought a major rescue update on Monday, October 12. Nepali authorities said rescue personnel brought out 321 people on Monday, including 12 foreigners; the military said rescue operations would continue on Tuesday even though water levels on the Budhi Gandaki River have receded.
The disaster occurred in the early hours of Sunday: a dry landslide in Gorkha district blocked the Budhi Gandaki River, and when the landslide dam breached it formed a flash flood that destroyed bridges, trekking trails and large numbers of homes. The site is about 100 kilometers west of Kathmandu, in the peak of Nepal's trekking season. Bhuwan Raj Ojha, an official with the Manaslu Conservation Area Project, told Reuters that more than 100 foreign trekkers remain stranded at various points along the Manaslu trail — some sections have been washed away, so those who want to descend must be evacuated by rescuers, while those who wish to continue can proceed from safe sections; he stressed that there are restaurants and teahouses along the trail and that those stranded are currently safe.
On casualties and losses, no deaths have been reported so far, but five villagers remain missing; black mud and rubble destroyed more than 200 houses and damaged three hydropower stations. Among those stranded, nine Bangladeshi trekkers are waiting in Jagat village for a possible helicopter evacuation; one of them described to Anadolu Agency how the flood poured down from above the village and ran through its lower half.
Relative to GSM's initial October 11 report (at the time: five missing, 49 rescued), this report's new developments are three: total rescues have risen to 321; the scale of the stranded foreign trekkers (more than 100) has been made clear for the first time; and the figures for houses and hydropower damage have been published for the first time. On the cause, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) preliminarily judges that the flood may have originated from the breach of a temporary dam formed by the landslide, and warns that mountain communities and river-valley corridors are highly exposed to such 'chain-reaction' sudden disasters. For background, the Budhi Gandaki is a tributary of the Trishuli River — another tributary of the same basin suffered a catastrophic glacial-outburst flood in August that, according to Reuters, killed 1,457 people and left thousands missing; the fragility of the mountain terrain has shown itself in brutal fashion twice in two months.
Manaslu, together with Annapurna and the Everest region, is among the Nepal routes most often chosen by Chinese trekkers, and October is the busiest month of the year.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：从戈尔卡县萨马冈村望向马纳斯鲁峰。摄影：Sunuwargr，CC BY-SA 4.0，来源：Wikimedia Commons
