Key Points
- Families have started burying the dead and missing.
- Nepali rescuers are hoping to find more survivors in hydropower tunnels.
Nepali rescuers clung to hopes of finding survivors trapped in hydropower tunnels on Wednesday, two weeks after deadly flooding triggered by a glacial mountain collapse.
The 26 August tsunami-like surge of water, mud and debris — which began on the China-Nepal border — has killed 1,377 people and left 5,130, including 587 foreigners, missing, according to Nepali authorities.
"The rescue and search work in the tunnels at Trishuli 3A, 3B and Chilime hydropower projects is ongoing," Nepal Army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
In China, 43 people are dead and 519 are missing, according to state media.
The number of Australians unaccounted for remains at 35, and Australian government officials and disaster response personnel have been deployed to Nepal to support response efforts. Neither Nepal nor China has confirmed that any Australians are among the deceased.
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Australia’s Disaster Assistance and Response Team (DART) has conducted mapping and thermal searches in the disaster-hit region, including the last known locations of some missing Australians.
Three people were rescued from deep inside hydropower tunnels — two Nepalis on Friday and a Chinese man on Saturday.
Hopes dimming
But there has been no official confirmation of further survivors since then.
Authorities appealed on Wednesday for overseas family members of the missing — preferably parents or children — to submit DNA samples via email.
A public notice outlined specific types of genetic tests the family members should seek out depending on their sex and relationship to the missing person.
Thousands of people displaced by the disaster are living in camps, and the charity Save the Children said as many as 540 children had been separated from their parents.
Nepal police said they were taking extra care to ensure the safety of children and women in relief camps.
"We have become more vigilant in temporary holding centres in the affected areas where there are children, women or minority groups who could be victims of sexual abuse," said Nepal Police spokesman Abi Narayan Kafle.
"We have also started providing psychosocial counselling in different camps," he told AFP.
While the exact cause of the glacial collapse is unclear, climate change is accelerating glacial melt worldwide and increasing the risk of such disasters.
Nepal, a largely rural nation of 30 million people that has contributed little to the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming, has said reconstruction could cost billions of dollars.
Kafle said security personnel have involved community members to search for bodies feared buried under debris.
"We have started a special search campaign for missing bodies all across the Bhotekoshi river corridor," he said.
"We are also using drones to search for bodies."
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