KATHMANDU, Nepal – The Nepal Tourism Board has confirmed that two Spanish nationals have been located after initially being reported missing, following the massive flash flood that has claimed more than 600 lives and left nearly 3,000 people unaccounted for in Nepal and China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. The official body included the two Spaniards in the category of those located, specifying that they are in communication with authorities and have not yet been rescued, in its latest update on the list of missing foreigners published at 13:30 local time.
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According to the NTB update, a total of 184 foreign tourists have been rescued alive following the Wednesday flash flood in the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river basins, while three remain located and in contact with authorities, including the two Spanish nationals, and 420 others remain completely out of contact. Nepalese authorities have raised the death toll to 626 on Saturday, with 2,426 people still unaccounted for following the Wednesday flood, and when combined with victims from China’s Gyirong county in Tibet, the separate counts from both sides now reach 633 fatalities and nearly 3,000 missing.
The flash flood, which experts have attributed to a glacial avalanche in the warming Himalayan region, swept through communities and destroyed infrastructure, including bridges and roads, cutting off entire villages and leaving survivors struggling to cope. Rescuers continue to search for survivors, though the chances of finding more people alive are diminishing as days pass. International search and rescue teams have been deployed, and countries around the world have expressed alarm over their missing citizens. The Nepalese government has appealed for international assistance as the scale of the disaster continues to unfold, with relief efforts hampered by damaged infrastructure and difficult terrain. The confirmed location of the two Spanish nationals offers a glimmer of hope amid the devastation, though hundreds of others remain unaccounted for in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the region in recent years.
