Live Updates
More than 900 dead in Nepal
Number of people missing after Nepal flood rises to 4,247, with more than 900 dead as of now.
Tourism in Nepal: What is working and what is not working for visitors in Nepal?
Wednesday's flash flood came down the Bhote Koshi and into the Trishuli, striking Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading districts. Search and rescue continues, and our thoughts are with every family still waiting. The PATA Nepal Chapter's first priority is supporting that response.
Our second is accuracy. International coverage has not distinguished between one river corridor and a country of 147,000 square kilometres, and travellers are drawing conclusions the facts do not support.
Map: Flood-Affected Zone - Bhote Koshi–Trishuli River Corridor, Nepal (August 2026)
Currently disrupted
The Langtang, Rasuwa, and Bhote Koshi corridor is closed. Search and rescue is active and authorities have warned of further flooding from a barrier lake upstream. Travel there is not possible. The Galchhi–Syabrubesi road is closed.
Operating normally
Overland movements between Kathmandu–Pokhara and Kathmandu–Chitwan are operating normally.
Tribhuvan International Airport and all domestic airports
Kathmandu Valley — hotels, restaurants and heritage sites
Everest and Khumbu region, including Lukla flights
Annapurna region and Pokhara
Chitwan and Bardiya
Lumbini and the Terai
Autumn is Nepal's principal trekking season and it opens in four weeks. The Everest and Annapurna regions, where the great majority of autumn arrivals travel, are outside the affected river system and were not in the flood path. PATA Nepal Chapter will confirm operating conditions in the affected region in subsequent updates as the situation stabilizes.
The Nepal Tourism Board is issuing numbered Situation Updates on the Bhote Koshi flood, including verification of travellers' whereabouts and safety: ntb.gov.np/en/latest-travel-updates .
570 dead 1900 missing
The numbers of dead and missing after the Nepal- China floods keep going up.
538 dead in Nepal
At least 538 people died in the recent floods in Nepal and more than 1300 are still missing,
China warns of more flooding as Glaciers Melt due to climate change
China has issued fresh warnings about further flooding in the Himalayan region as glacier collapse and newly formed lakes threaten communities downstream.
Scientists say the danger is closely connected to a warming climate. Rising temperatures accelerate glacier and snow melt, while retreating glaciers can create or enlarge unstable lakes. Heavy rainfall can add even more water and increase the chance of sudden, destructive floods.
Recent research shows that glacial lakes across the China–Nepal Himalayas have expanded significantly in recent decades, while warming is making high-mountain flood hazards an increasing concern.
The warning highlights a growing climate challenge: melting glaciers are not only a long-term threat to water supplies—they can also create immediate risks for communities, roads and infrastructure downstream.
#ClimateChange #China #GlacierMelting #Floods #GlobalWarming #ClimateNews
Death toll 385 in Nepal
According to latest reports the number of people killed in Nepal is 385
Names of missing and found tourists in Nepal flooding disaster
List of missing foreign tourists and visitors click here
332 confirmed dead in Nepal
Nearly 1,400 missing, mostly tourists, and hundreds killed. 332 bodies had been found at this time.
Death numbers increase to 270 in Nepal ƒlood
More than 1,300 missing after deadly floodwaters wipe out villages on Nepal-China border
Scores killed as catastrophic flooding destroys critical infrastructure, hampering rescue efforts including search for 700 foreigners.
270 peoplle are confirmed dead
Rescued Indian tourists in Nepal
100 missing Indian tourists and 25 Chinese workers were located in Nepal
Updated list of foreign tourists missing in Nepal
As many as 476 foreigners from 29 countries are among the 570 tourists missing in Nepal after a catastrophic flood devastated the Himalayan nation and China's Tibet, tourism officials said on Thursday.The tally of foreigners missing in Tibet's Gyirong county was 260, state broadcaster CCTV said, but nationality details were not immediately available.
Here are nations whose tourists are missing in Nepal:
INDIA: Neighbouring India had the highest number of missing with 177, Nepal's tourism board said.
AUSTRALIA: Authorities are working with Nepal to locate 34 Australians reported missing, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.
BRITAIN: There were 33 British citizens missing after the disaster, the Nepal tourism board said.
CANADA: The missing include 25 Canadians, the board said.
GERMANY: At least eight Germans were among the missing, the board said.
JAPAN: Japan's embassy in Nepal asked for a search to locate five citizens it was unable to contact, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on X.
MALAYSIA: At least 55 nationals reported to Malaysia's embassy in Kathmandu are uncontactable, its foreign ministry said on Thursday. Nepal's tourism board put the number of missing at 28.
NEW ZEALAND: At least five tourists from New Zealand were among the missing, Nepal said.
RUSSIA: Five Russians were among the missing, the Nepal tourism board said.
SINGAPORE: Six Singapore citizens were missing, the board said.
SOUTH AFRICA: Six South Africans were untraceable after the flood on Wednesday, authorities in Nepal said.
SOUTH KOREA: Nine South Koreans working in a hydropower plant were missing and 10 were stranded, South Korea's foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
UKRAINE: 53 Ukrainians were missing in the flood, authorities said.
UNITED STATES: At least 63 U.S. citizens are missing, the Nepal tourism board said.
Also missing since Wednesday are citizens of Belarus, Belgium, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Kazhakstan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the Phillipines, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, Nepal's tourism board said in its statement.
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LIVE UPDATES:The catastrophic Nepal–Tibet Himalayan flood disaster continues to unfold as the reported death toll rises and more than 1,300 people remain missing. eTurboNews is continuously updating this report with the latest information on tourists, rescue operations, casualties, Tibet, border communities, transportation and the developing cause of the disaster.
KATHMANDU, Nepal — A catastrophic wall of water, mud, ice and rock has swept through Nepal’s Himalayan border region with Tibet, killing at least 157 people and leaving hundreds more missing, including a large number of international tourists, pilgrims and trekking visitors.
The August 26 disaster is rapidly developing into one of Nepal’s deadliest tourism-related natural disasters in recent history.
Late Wednesday, Nepal’s Kathmandu Post reported that the confirmed death toll had reached 157, citing an updated Nepal Police count. Hundreds remained unaccounted for.
The disaster struck the Bhote Koshi/Lhende river system near Rasuwagadhi, Nepal’s main northern border crossing with China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, before racing downstream through Timure, Syaphrubesi, Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading.
Entire settlements, hotels, roads, bridges, vehicles, police facilities, hydropower infrastructure and sections of the Nepal-China trade corridor have been destroyed or buried.
For Nepal’s tourism industry, the most alarming number is the extraordinary number of visitors who cannot be located.
Gloria Guevara,CEO of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) , told eTurboNews that she is closely monitoring the unfolding natural disaster in Nepal. “My heart is with the victims, their families, and all those affected by this devastating tragedy,” she said.
According to CNN: The cause of this torrent of floodwaterthat carved a devastating path through Nepal and Tibet, swallowing towns, roads, and bridges, is not yet clear.
Hundreds of tourists unaccounted for
The Nepal Tourism Board reported 403 tourists out of contact, including 341 foreign nationals and 62 Nepalis, according to the latest local reporting.
The reported missing foreigners include:
- 133 Indian citizens
- 47 Americans
- 34 Australians
- 33 British citizens
- 24 Canadians
- 19 Malaysians
- 7 Ukrainians
- 6 South Africans
- 6 Singaporeans
- 5 New Zealanders
- 5 Japanese
- 4 Germans
- 3 French citizens
- 2 Spanish citizens
Travelers from additional countries are also believed to be affected.
These numbers require an important qualification: “out of contact” does not necessarily mean dead or physically missing in the flood.
Roads, mobile communications and electricity have been cut across parts of the affected region. Some tourists may be stranded in hotels, trekking areas or isolated communities where authorities and tour operators simply cannot reach them.
Earlier Nepal Tourism Board counts listed 384 tourists as out of contact. As information arrived from travel agencies, guides and authorities, that figure subsequently increased to 403 — demonstrating how quickly the situation is changing.
Reuters reported a still higher government figure, saying the Prime Minister’s Office listed 484 tourists as missing or unaccounted for, including 391 foreigners and 93 Nepalis. The discrepancy appears to reflect different reporting times and datasets being compiled by Nepalese authorities and tourism organizations.
Kailash pilgrims and trekkers caught in disaster
The location makes this catastrophe particularly significant for international tourism.
The Rasuwagadhi-Gyirong corridor is not simply a remote Himalayan border.
It is an important gateway for visitors traveling between Nepal and Tibet and lies on routes used by tourists and trekkers visiting the Langtang region and by pilgrims traveling toward Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar in Tibet.
The Nepal Tourism Board said missing travelers had been traveling toward Gosaikunda and Kailash Manasarovar through numerous tour and trekking companies.
The timing therefore could hardly have been worse. Hundreds of Hindu and other religious pilgrims travel through the region during the Kailash Manasarovar season, while Nepal’s northern Himalayan areas attract international trekkers and adventure travelers.
Reuters reported that more than 100 Indians, British and American citizens were among those initially listed as missing. South Korea also reported eight nationals working at a hydropower project as unaccounted for.
“Nothing is left of Timure Bazaar”
Accounts coming from local Nepali media describe destruction on a scale difficult to comprehend.
Timure, a small but strategically important border settlement, appears to have been virtually erased.
Pema Dorje Ghale, a local ward representative, told OnlineKhabar that residents heard an enormous rumbling shortly before the flood struck.
“There is nothing left of Timure Bazaar. The flood has destroyed everything.”
The flood reportedly arrived so rapidly that residents had almost no time to understand what was happening before running uphill for their lives.
Rajendra Dhungana, chief of the Timure Customs Office, told local media that employees initially believed they were experiencing an earthquake.
After rushing outside, they instead saw an enormous flood descending from above amid a tremendous roar.
Nepali newspaper Kantipur similarly reported witnesses describing what appeared to be a roughly 100-metre-high cloud or wave of debris approaching Timure, although the visual estimate should not be interpreted as a scientifically measured flood-wave height.
Social media videos show people running for their lives
The scale and extraordinary speed of the disaster are also visible in videos spreading across social media.
Footage distributed by Nepal Police and carried by international media shows muddy torrents crashing through Himalayan valleys.
Even more disturbing fixed-camera footage from the Chinese side of the border appears to show people running from an approaching torrent of rock, mud and water seconds before buildings and vehicles are overwhelmed.
Reuters verified footage showing people being swept away near the border.
Images and videos circulating online show collapsed buildings, vehicles buried in mud, bridges disappearing into raging water and survivors being carried or airlifted from devastated communities.
The videos have triggered an intense reaction online. A heavily discussed Reddit news thread was dominated by viewers expressing shock at the extraordinary speed of the approaching debris-filled water. Those reactions are eyewitness responses to video rather than verified information about casualties and should be treated accordingly.
What caused the Nepal flood?
Despite some early reports describing the disaster as a conventional monsoon flash flood or cloudburst, emerging scientific evidence suggests something significantly more complex.
Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority has been examining satellite imagery indicating that a massive ice-and-rock avalanche or landslide occurred approximately 20 kilometers northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border crossing.
The collapse apparently affected the Lhende River, producing a debris-laden flood that surged toward Timure and subsequently entered the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli river systems.
Another early theory suggested a magnitude 4.4 earthquake may have triggered the collapse.
Nepal Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal told parliament that a seismic event had been recorded shortly before the flood.
Scientists, however, are still determining whether this was a conventional earthquake, whether seismic instruments recorded the enormous landslide itself, and whether a glacial or debris-dam collapse was involved.
It is therefore premature to declare a definitive cause.
What appears increasingly likely is a cascading Himalayan disaster: an ice-and-rock collapse or avalanche affected a high-altitude river, water and debris accumulated or were displaced, and an enormous surge then raced downstream.
Disaster crosses into Tibet
This is also not exclusively a Nepalese catastrophe.
China’s state broadcaster reported at least three deaths and 265 people missing in Gyirong County on the Tibetan side, according to Reuters. Roads, electricity and communications around the Gyirong border port were severely disrupted.
Chinese authorities deployed drones to assess inaccessible areas, while President Xi Jinping called for an all-out effort to find missing people.
The geography makes Nepal and Tibet inseparable when disasters of this type occur. Rivers and glacial systems originate high in the Himalayas and cross an international border before entering densely inhabited valleys below.
That raises difficult questions about cross-border monitoring and early-warning systems between China and Nepal.
Kantipur reported that Nepalese and Chinese meteorological officials held discussions following the disaster and that China agreed to inform Nepal when significant increases in upstream water flow are detected. The newspaper also noted that the two countries already signed a disaster-risk-reduction cooperation agreement in 2019.
Rescue helicopters struggling to reach survivors
Search-and-rescue operations are being conducted by the Nepal Army, Nepal Police and Armed Police Force, but the Himalayan terrain and destruction of roads and bridges are severely limiting access.
Helicopters have been deployed, but Reuters reported that aircraft were initially unable to land in some of the worst-hit areas around Syapru Besi and Timurebecause of river conditions and the destruction below.
Nepalese security forces themselves have suffered potentially devastating losses. Local reports indicate that dozens of soldiers, police officers and Armed Police Force personnel deployed in the affected corridor remain out of contact.
The number of casualties may therefore rise considerably as rescuers reach settlements currently cut off from Kathmandu.
Nepal tourism faces an international emergency
For Nepal, this is no longer only a domestic disaster.
With citizens of more than two dozen countries reportedly unaccounted for, the catastrophe has become an international tourism and consular emergency.
Foreign embassies, tour operators, trekking companies, ground handlers and families around the world are trying to establish whether travelers listed as missing were actually in the path of the flood or are simply stranded without communications.
The Nepal Tourism Board has been working with tourism police, travel companies, local authorities and security agencies to reconcile passenger and guest lists.
The Board has published emergency contact information for those trying to locate travelers:
Nepal Tourism Board toll-free number: 1234
Hotline: 1144
Tourist Police: +977 9851289445
Families should verify information through official government, embassy, Nepal Tourism Board or tour-operator channels before accepting unconfirmed casualty reports circulating through social media.
Hydropower and transportation network devastated
The economic consequences will extend well beyond tourism.
The Nepal Electricity Authority reported major damage to hydropower generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure.
Affected facilities include Rasuwagadhi and other important hydropower and transmission installations, while roads and bridges serving the Nepal-China border corridor have been destroyed.
Some reporting indicates approximately 430 megawatts of generating capacitywas affected, a substantial blow to Nepal’s electricity system. Communities farther downstream have also been placed on alert.
The flood entered the Trishuli system and continued through lower elevations, with bodies reportedly recovered far downstream from the original disaster zone. Kantipur’s late-night reporting said fatalities had been recorded across several districts along the river corridor.
The same Himalayan corridor was hit in 2025
There is an especially disturbing historical parallel.
The Rasuwagadhi area suffered another major transboundary flash flood in July 2025, only about 13 months ago.
Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority concluded that the 2025 disaster resulted from the rapid drainage of a supraglacial lake on the Purepu Glacier in Tibet, approximately 35 kilometers upstream from the Nepal-China border.
That flood killed at least nine people, left 19 missing, destroyed the Nepal-China Friendship Bridge and damaged the Rasuwagadhi dry port, roads and hydropower facilities.
Wednesday’s catastrophe appears dramatically larger.
It will inevitably renew questions about whether Himalayan tourism corridors exposed to glacial, landslide and debris-flow hazards have adequate real-time monitoring and whether warnings generated upstream can reach tourists, guides, hotels, communities and border authorities quickly enough to save lives.
A tourism disaster still unfolding
At this hour, the most important word is provisional.
At least 157 deaths have been reported by leading Nepali media citing police figures, but earlier government and international reports carried substantially lower totals as bodies were being recovered.
Likewise, estimates of tourists who are missing or out of contact range from 403 in Nepal Tourism Board-related reporting to 484 in government figures cited by Reuters.
Those numbers should not yet be interpreted as hundreds of confirmed tourist fatalities.
Many may eventually be located alive once communications are restored.
But the combination of destroyed communities, hundreds of missing travelers, inaccessible valleys and extraordinary footage emerging from both Nepal and Tibet indicates that the final human toll could be severe.
For Nepal — a country where tourism, trekking, pilgrimage and Himalayan adventure are essential sources of employment and foreign exchange — August 26, 2026 may become another painful reminder that some of the world’s most spectacular tourism landscapes are also among its most fragile.
eTurboNews will continue monitoring Nepal Tourism Board information, Nepalese media, international wire services, Chinese reporting and verified social-media updates as the casualty and missing-person figures are reconciled.
This is a developing story. Casualty and missing-person numbers may change rapidly as communications with the affected Himalayan region are restored.
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