Missing Tourists in Nepal Make Contact as Search Efforts Continue for Flood Survivors

Officials in Nepal reported on Wednesday that several tourists missing since floods struck the Tibetan border region last week have made contact with rescue workers. Meanwhile, local families have held symbolic funerals for missing loved ones as hopes for their survival diminish. The Nepalese Foreign Ministry stated that 590 foreign nationals from 39 countries remain unaccounted for following the floods on August 26. Authorities have confirmed the rescue of 324 foreigners, and a few of the missing have sent messages via phone or email in recent days indicating they are alive. Residents in Devighat, Nuwakot district, have been salvaging belongings from homes damaged by mud and debris following the floods. The overall death toll from the floods in Nepal has reached 1,118, with 3,900 individuals reported missing. On the Tibetan side of the border, China reported 21 fatalities and 541 missing, including 104 Nepalis, 49 Indians, and 33 Latvians who were part of tour groups visiting sacred mountains. Intensive rescue efforts are currently focused on tunnels beneath Nepal's hydropower plants, where approximately 900 missing workers are believed to have sought refuge from the flood but have since become trapped. Two hydropower plants are considered particularly promising for potential survivors due to indications of air reaching subterranean tunnels through pipes. India, China, and the United States have sent tunnel rescue experts to assist in the efforts. Amshu Kiran Shahi, a board member of the Nepal Electricity Authority, expressed confidence that survivors may still be alive in the hydropower plants, noting that they were designed to withstand natural disasters and were stocked with food and water. Nepalese emergency operations official Phanindra Paudel remarked, "The hope of finding survivors is decreasing. We pray and are hopeful. Hope is hope." Prime Minister Balendra Shah characterized the flood as "one of the major disasters experienced by human civilization," emphasizing the priority of ongoing search and rescue operations. In the hardest-hit areas, some Hindu residents have begun holding symbolic funerals for missing family members, adhering to beliefs that cremation rites can provide spiritual release for the deceased, even in the absence of their bodies. In such ceremonies, straw effigies are burned along swollen riverbanks. Authorities have buried hundreds of unidentified victims in mass graves, with barbed-wire fences erected around these sites. Officials are preserving DNA samples and photographs of the deceased for future identification and return to families for proper funerals. The flood's force was so significant that bodies have been found hundreds of miles away in India, with many victims washed ashore in the Nepalese district of Chitwan, where morgues have limited capacity. Morticians attempted to establish an improvised cold storage facility using dry ice, but the necessary freezers did not arrive in time, leading to temporary burial in mass graves. A Chitwan police officer indicated, "We’re still finding 15 to 20 new bodies every day. This will keep going on for months."