In the massive flash flood disaster that struck the Nepal-China border area on August 26, the death toll had reached 750, with 3,044 people still missing as of August 30, according to Reuters.
Five Japanese nationals believed to be a family from Osaka are among those missing. They are believed to have been caught in the disaster near an immigration facility in Nepal’s Rasuwa district.
The area was extensively damaged and is extremely difficult to reach because roads have been blocked and there is a risk of further disasters, making search and rescue efforts particularly challenging.
The Japanese tourists had been traveling in the Tibet Autonomous Region with a Chinese travel agency. They crossed the border into Nepal on the morning of August 26, around the time the disaster struck.
Recovery work had begun in parts of Bidur, central Nepal, after the city was hit by a debris flow, August 30. (©Sankei/Yoshiaki Nishimi)
Driver Also Missing
A Kathmandu-based company affiliated with the Chinese travel agency had sent a driver in his 50s to pick them up. He was planning to take the tourists by company vehicle to a hotel in Kathmandu. The driver is also missing.
“We have no clues at all about the five Japanese customers who went missing or our company’s driver,” a representative of the travel agency said on August 28. “All the roads are blocked, making it difficult to reach the disaster area near the border. The only option is a helicopter, but the situation is extremely difficult.”
The company’s search team reportedly tried every day to reach Rasuwa district, north of Kathmandu, but was forced to turn back each time because of the poor road conditions.
The representative said the company had shared all available information about the five Japanese tourists with the Japanese Embassy.
Search Efforts Hampered
By August 28, the Japanese Foreign Ministry had sent one member of its Emergency Response Team, which assists Japanese nationals overseas, to Nepal, with another member dispatched afterward.
However, Japanese government officials have been unable to reach the disaster area because roads have been cut off and there is a risk of further disasters.
For Nepalese authorities, the sheer scale of the area that needs to be searched has become a major challenge.
The powerful waters unleashed by what a Nepalese newspaper described as a “glacial collapse equivalent in size to 40,000 to 80,000 Olympic swimming pools” swept away everything in their path for hundreds of kilometers downstream.
India-based news channel Times Now reported on its website that the debris flow crossed into India and reached Kushinagar district, where the bodies of three people believed to have been victims of the disaster were found.
(Read the article in Japanese.)
Author: Yoshiaki Nishimi, The Sankei Shimbun
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