More than 600 dead and about 3,000 missing in Nepal: "Nothing is left here"

Today, Saturday, efforts continue to locate the thousands missing in the massive flood that struck the Nepal-Tibet border and destroyed entire villages. According to estimates, the number of missing is about 3,000 people, including 933 power station workers in the area and 517 foreign citizens. So far, 633 bodies have been recovered, and there is a fear that some of the victims were swept away by the strong currents.

The disaster, which occurred on Wednesday, was caused by the collapse of a glacier at an altitude of about 5,200 meters, which created a massive debris flow. A rescue and emergency worker described the difficulty of trying to locate the missing in the harsh terrain conditions:

"Everything here is quicksand mud. This is the first time I have seen such a thing. We have dealt with floods in Nepal before, but not like this."

The authorities in both countries are now waiting for the two central lakes into which the water drained to empty completely, and the situation assessments are based mainly on satellite images.

"All the villages near the river were swept away," said one of the residents. "Nothing is left here." A woman who was looking for her son, who works at the hydroelectric power station in the disaster area, said in despair: "I came here to look for him, but I cannot find his name, and the authorities are not telling us anything."

Yesterday, the Red Cross updated that more than 93,000 people were directly affected by the avalanche and floods at the foot of the Himalayas: "The event is not over yet." In a briefing to journalists in Geneva, David Fisher, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Nepal, said that the organization's trucks with aid supplies got stuck after a lake created as a result of the landslide overflowed, which also temporarily halted rescue operations.