KATHMANDU, September 7 — Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that catastrophic flash floods along the Bhotekoshi River have claimed more than one thousand lives, with several thousand people still unaccounted for. The announcement, delivered by ministry spokesperson Lok Bahadur Chhetri during a press briefing in the capital on Tuesday, framed the official response in stark humanitarian terms.
“As we have stated, our immediate national priority remains clear: to save lives, locate those who are missing, rescue survivors, provide urgent relief, and ensure that all affected people, both Nepali and foreign nationals, receive appropriate assistance and support,” Chhetri said. The scale of the missing has drawn specialised rescue teams from multiple countries.
A twenty-four-member Indian tunnel rescue team, operating in two units, is working alongside the Nepal Army at the Chilime and Langtang hydropower project sites. A nine-member Chinese team has been deployed to the Upper Trishuli 3A project site. The Republic of Korea has also mobilised a specialised team, though its specific deployment location was not detailed.
The involvement of foreign nationals among the missing — numbering in the hundreds from dozens of countries — has elevated the disaster from a domestic tragedy to an international incident requiring coordinated diplomacy. Among those still unaccounted for are foreign workers believed trapped inside hydropower tunnels.
Over twenty-one thousand security personnel from the Nepal Army, Nepal Police, and Armed Police Force have been deployed across disaster-stricken corridors. More than eleven thousand people have been rescued so far, including several hundred foreign nationals, a handful of whom remain in direct contact with authorities.
Forensic Challenges and Identification Efforts
The sheer volume of recovered remains has overwhelmed Nepal’s forensic capacity. A nineteen-member forensic DNA team from India has been operating in the country since late August. A four-member Chinese forensic team arrived on September 2.
Coordination is underway to deploy a Disaster Victim Identification team from Singapore. Chhetri noted that where remains cannot be immediately identified or safely preserved, temporary burial has been carried out after forensic procedures, including DNA sample collection, to facilitate later identification.
Families of missing persons are advised to contact the Nepal Police Hospital in Maharajgunj, Kathmandu, or their nearest District Police Office; relatives abroad can submit DNA profiles via the official email of the Nepal Police. Nepal has requested specialised equipment from international partners, including LiDAR technology, belly bridges, freezers, DNA testing kits, load carriers, human remains bags, high-capacity drones, and gene sequencers.
Regional Impact and Diplomatic Response
The Ministry expressed gratitude to India, China, Japan, the United States, the UAE, South Korea, and other international partners for relief supplies and financial solidarity. The floods were not confined to Nepali territory. China’s Tibet region also suffered severe damage, where a memorial service for mudslide victims was held at the Gyirong Port police station in Gyirong County on September 1.
The event underscores the regional impact and the coordinated international response to the disaster. For all the noise of international cooperation, the immediate test remains in the tunnels and along the river corridors where rescue teams now work against time and terrain.
What follows will depend on whether the promised equipment arrives promptly, whether DNA matching can bring closure to families across several continents, and whether Nepal’s hydropower infrastructure — built in some of the world’s most geologically volatile terrain — receives the reassessment that events would seem to demand.
