For 10 days, Nepali hydropower worker Sanjay Sah survived in darkness inside a flooded tunnel, drinking muddy water and losing all sense of time as he desperately prayed for rescue.

When a disaster response team finally pulled him to safety on September 4, Mr. Sah’s first question showed how deeply the ordeal had disoriented him.

“When I was rescued I first asked, how many days has it been?” Mr. Sah, 30, told AFP in an interview, while on his way back home in Saptari district Sunday (September 13, 2026).

“He said that it has been 10 days. I thought it had been just a few days.”

Mr. Sah was among hundreds of workers at a series of hydropower projects hit by the catastrophic August 26 flood, triggered by a glacial mountain collapse on the China-Nepal border.

Mr. Sah’s extraordinary survival was a rare ray of hope after a disaster that killed at least 1,429 people and left more than 5,640 missing, the majority in Nepal.

Struggling to hold back tears as friends and family welcomed him with garlands and a cake, Mr. Sah recalled how the disaster struck with stunning speed.

“I was on duty, and then suddenly an unthinkable flood hit us, with tsunami-like waves that were several metres tall,” he said.

Workers had received warnings that floodwaters were approaching, but did not get enough time to escape, he said.

“We did get information to stay alert, that a big flood is coming. As much as possible, we tried to be alert and evacuate our friends,” Mr. Sah said.

“But the water did not give us much time. We shut down everything, and tried to rescue and evacuate our friends.”

Within minutes, however, the tunnel was engulfed by raging waters.

The sheer scale of the flood was unlike anything witnesses had seen before, with the government pointing the finger at the dire impact of rising global temperatures on Nepal’s Himalayan mountains.

Separated from his colleagues, Mr. Sah found himself stranded with little idea whether anyone would ever reach him.

“I was chanting Maha Mantra (Hindu prayers), and the divine energy I received because of that allowed me to not be scared or despair,” he said.

With no clean water to drink, he survived on whatever he could find.

“There was water, but it was muddy,” he said. “I only had that.”

The darkness and isolation might have been overwhelming, but Mr. Sah was not entirely alone.

Another trapped worker, Kabir Maharjan, 45, had survived nearby.

“We were separated but speaking to each other.”

The ability to hear another human voice offered a lifeline to Mr. Sah.

Eventually, after days of excavation and painstaking rescue efforts, search teams broke through to the trapped men and brought them out alive.

Mr. Sah’s wife, Lakshmi Kumari Sah, said she never gave up hope of seeing her husband again.

“God has helped us, we had our hopes,” she said, holding her daughter in her arms.

Mr. Sah, who spent several days recuperating in a Kathmandu hospital, says he has mixed emotions.

“I am happy, but I feel sad too,” he said. “I was able to get a second life, to survive there. But many of our friends were there.”

As rescuers continue searching through the tunnels, Mr. Sah urged authorities not to abandon the effort.

One Chinese worker was rescued on September 5, the day after Mr. Sah — but no signs of life have been heard since.

“I hope the government continues its search and rescue. It is possible there might still be someone alive,” he said.

“Or they will be able to find bodies of friends who have passed away and hand them over to their families.”

Published – September 13, 2026 11:46 am IST

Around 600 children remain unaccounted for in Nepal’s Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts after the devastating flash floods, as the death toll rose to 1,282 on Friday (September 2) with more than 4,700 missing.

So far, 359 bodies have been recovered in Chitwan, 218 in Nawalparasi East, 208 in Nawalparasi West, 185 in Nuwakot, 72 in Gorkha, 60 in Dhading, 140 in Rasuwa and 38 in Tanahu, according to Nepal Police.

With two people dying while undergoing treatment in two hospitals in Kathmandu, the death toll has reached 1,282.

The joint command of security forces is searching for 4,798 people missing from different areas.

-PTI

Retired Madras High Court judge V. Sivagnanam, who has been reported missing in Nepal amid the flash floods
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Five-year-old Ishara Tamang lies in a hospital bed in Kathmandu, injured and separated from her family, after surviving the flash floods that devastated Rasuwa district on the Nepal-Tibet border.

She was rescued from the floodwaters in Khalte, a village in Rasuwa, after being trapped in a net, the Onlinekhabar news portal reported. Ishara told hospital staff: “Mother was swept away. I jumped and moved forward, then got trapped in the net.” The August 26 floods – which travelled downstream through the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river system – have left a trail of destruction across northern and central Nepal, with the death toll crossing 700 on Sunday (August 30, 2026), while around 2,500 people are still missing.

Nepal flash floods LIVE updates on August 30, 2026

Families, on Sunday (August 30, 2026), crowded hospitals searching for missing relatives as rescuers continued digging through mud and debris amid intermittent rainfall and renewed concerns over rising river levels.

Ishara was with her mother when the flood struck. The child was swept away, tried to move forward and became trapped in a net before rescuers found her and brought her to safety.

She was not accompanied by a family member at the hospital. When she regained consciousness, she was able to tell medical staff her name and said her father was in Kathmandu. Her mother’s whereabouts remained unknown, the report said.

In another rescue operation at the Timure border town, an Armed Police Force team searching the wreckage of a collapsed security post heard a child’s cries.

The Kathmandu Post newspaper reported that the rescuers dug through the debris and pulled out a six-year-old girl alive.

The team had initially been unable to see anyone beneath the collapsed structure, but heard the child’s crying while searching the site, said the report quoting a senior security official.

The girl was taken to the border outpost in Timure, but bad weather prevented her immediate evacuation to a hospital, the newspaper reported, without sharing her identity.

In another rescue operation, a five-year-old girl rescued alive from beneath rubble two days after the devastating flash floods has been reunited with her parents in a Kathmandu hospital, the BBC reported.

Manisha was found near Syabrubesi in Rasuwa district on Friday (August 28, 2026) after rescuers searching for survivors thought they heard a cat trapped under the debris. A senior official with Nepal’s Armed Police Force told the BBC that rescuers began clearing the rubble and found the girl trapped underneath. It took about two hours to pull her out.

Manisha was barely responsive, and bad weather prevented her immediate evacuation by helicopter. Rescuers took her to a force camp, gave her water and later fed her boiled rice water after she regained consciousness.

She was flown to Kathmandu on Saturday (August 29, 2026) afternoon and admitted to the Teaching Hospital’s paediatric emergency department. On Sunday (August 30, 2026), the hospital said she was recovering. The BBC reported that Manisha has since been reunited with her parents.

At Timure, businessman Nischal Tripathi escaped the flood by running from a building as water and mud surged through the settlement.

According to Onlinekhabar, Mr. Tripathi had been in Timure for about 20 days on business and was on the fifth floor of a building when he felt it shake. He ran downstairs and jumped from around the second floor before reaching the mountainside.

Mr. Tripathi and others then fled into the forest. They spent the night on noodles and biscuits before moving to a goat shed, where around 150 to 200 people gathered along with Nepali Army personnel, Onlinekhabar reported.

Mr. Tripathi told the news portal that his brother, five or six members of his team and seven truck drivers remained out of contact. “Only one or two houses appear to have survived,” he said, describing the destruction.

For Rekha Devi Gosain of Trishuli Bazaar, surviving the flood has meant confronting the loss of her home, livelihood and access to essential medicines.

The Kathmandu Post reported that the flood swept away Ms. Gosain’s home and four shops. Her vehicle, motorcycle and other belongings were also lost, and she was unable to save the medicines she takes for diabetes, high blood pressure and thyroid disease.

Ms. Gosain was among the people staying in the area around Trishuli Hospital after the disaster, according to the newspaper.

Her son Raghubir told the newspaper that she had gone three days without her regular medicines because the hospital did not have them.

The survivors’ stories are unfolding alongside a much larger search for those who remain missing. Over the last few days, families have gathered at hospitals with photographs and other information about missing relatives, checking lists and waiting for news of those who may have survived.

For those pulled from the rubble, swept towards hillsides or stranded overnight in forests, surviving the flood was only the first part of the ordeal. For thousands of families still searching, the wait for news continues.

Published – August 30, 2026 05:43 pm IST

Thick slush swallowing houses, roads turned treacherous, the stench of decomposing bodies of people and animals hanging in the air, and army camps transformed into makeshift mortuaries where ambulances arrive carrying the dead — these are scenes from Nepal’s flood-ravaged valleys, as described by Khalsa Aid volunteers working in the worst-hit areas.

For these volunteers who have spent the past three days moving through the affected areas, the devastation along Nepal’s border with Tibet is difficult to comprehend. In Nuwakot, Rasuwa and Dhading, entire stretches of villages and markets have been buried under mud and debris after a sudden flood tore through the mountain valleys.

“Today, if you go, you will not see water. But there is a lot of slush. Buildings are fully submerged in it. Many bodies are buried inside this,” said Manohar Naidu, a Bengaluru native who is currently in Nuwakot with Khalsa Aid.

“Even when we are trying to walk on the sides, we are slipping into the slush. The entire area is now stinking because of all the dead bodies of humans and animals. The situation on the ground is really bad,” Mr. Naidu said.

The disaster began on Wednesday (August 26) when a section of a Himalayan glacier collapsed near the Nepal-China border, sending a mass of ice, rock and debris into the Lhende river system. The resulting surge swept through Nepal’s Rasuwa district before moving downstream into Nuwakot and Dhading.

By Saturday (August 29), the scale of the catastrophe had become clearer. At least 676 people had died in Nepal and Tibet, while nearly 2,400 remained missing. More than 3,700 people had been rescued in Nepal, but large parts of the affected terrain remained difficult to reach because roads and bridges had been destroyed.

For those on the ground, however, the numbers do little to capture what the disaster looks and smells like.

In Rasuwa and Nuwakot, army camps have been turned into temporary mortuaries as hospital morgues run out of space. The volunteers described convoys of ambulances arriving with bodies recovered from the debris, which are being kept at the camps in the interim before being sent for identification.

Outside the tents, families wait in desperation.

Some have spent hours standing in the hope of receiving news about relatives who disappeared when the flood came. Mr. Naidu said many families have refused even the hot food – including rice, lentils, curries, being offered by volunteers.

“They are not even willing to accept the food that we are offering them. All they want to know is about their loved ones,” he said.

“Those who are with families are still eating a little. Those who have lost their loved ones aren’t even willing to eat at all,” said Manpreet Singh, a volunteer from Patiala, Punjab.

Mr. Singh, who has also worked during floods in Assam and a cyclone in Tamil Nadu, travelled to Nepal with five other volunteers from Punjab.

Their team recently reached Gajuri Bajar in Dhading, where they saw a large market area that had been almost completely washed away.

“Locals told us the market was active and full of people when the flood came. A lot of people were washed away and thousands remain missing still,” he said.

The volunteers had initially been assisting with rescue operations and the identification of bodies alongside the Lions Club, but on Saturday (August 29) were told by the authorities that rescue operations would be handled by the army and external organisations would not be allowed to take them up.

Their role has consequently shifted towards relief and support for those waiting at military camps for news of relatives. Khalsa Aid volunteers are currently providing hot meals, clothes and basic medical assistance at relief camps. One camp in Nuwakot is sheltering around 400 people, who are being looked after by volunteers.

Among the people Mr. Singh met was a 16-year-old girl who survived because her family received a warning moments before the flood struck.

“Her father received a call telling him that the flood was coming and that they should leave the house. She was studying at that time. The family ran to safety. Had they stayed, they too could have been swept away. Now she has lost all hope and we don’t know how to even encourage them,” he said.

The warning, however, came too late for many others.

Entire houses now stand disconnected from the road and filled with mud. In some places, there is barely a patch of firm ground on which to stand. Animal carcasses also remain scattered across the affected areas, adding to the stench.

The devastation has also left remote communities cut off from food and assistance. Mr. Naidu said some villages remain inaccessible because roads, bridges and other links have been destroyed. Khalsa Aid has proposed adopting some of these villages and supporting them through the rehabilitation process, but is awaiting a response from the Nepalese authorities.

The organisation is also expanding its presence. At present, its team comprises volunteers from Nepal and India, while three teams from India, Kenya and U.K. are expected to arrive on Sunday (August 30). The volunteers on the ground are assessing what individual communities need so that larger quantities of relief material can be sent in the coming days.

In some communities, however, people have asked for something different from cooked food.

Mr. Naidu said some Buddhist residents have been reluctant to accept prepared meals and have instead asked for raw ingredients so they can cook according to their own practices.

Published – August 29, 2026 09:25 pm IST

The threat of a lake formed ​after a glacier collapse bursting near the China-Nepal border, where a devastating flood struck earlier this week, has ⁠eased, Chinese authorities said on Saturday (August 29, 2026), as it appears to have shrunk.

Satellite images from Thursday (August 27, 2026) to Saturday (August 29, 2026) morning suggest that water in the lake, which straddles the border between China’s Tibet region and Nepal at the confluence of two rivers, has been slowly flowing out and gradually reducing ‌the reservoir, state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing the Water Resources Ministry.

By Saturday afternoon (August 29, 2026), parts of the lake bed had become visible, CCTV reported. The ministry said satellite imagery of the lake on the Purepu Tsangpo River showed it ‌covered 99,000 square metres (1.1 million square feet) early on Saturday (August 29, 2026), roughly the size of 14 soccer pitches, having shrunk by ‌21,000 ⁠square metres since Thursday (August 27, 2026).

A glacier collapse on Wednesday (August 26, 2026) sent a torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris through ⁠Himalayan river systems, sweeping away a border port complex linking Tibet with Nepal, killing hundreds and leaving thousands missing.

Nepal flash floods LIVE

Risks under watch

Experts and authorities have warned of an extremely high risk of secondary disasters in the valley, particularly from the lake formed by glacier debris, which could threaten rescue operations downstream.

With water draining naturally, ​Water Resources Ministry experts said search and rescue operations ‌downstream could continue safely if outflows remain low or manageable and recede completely within two to three days.

Rescue workers could be notified promptly to evacuate if any abnormalities appear at the lake, with warnings issued more than 30 minutes in advance, CCTV cited the experts as saying.

State-owned engineering and rescue company China Anneng, which has been monitoring the lake since Thursday (August 27, 2026), ‌has deployed radar and drones around the lake for 24-hour surveillance, CCTV said.

Initial overflow from the lake on Friday (August 28, 2026) ​temporarily halted rescue work before a subsequent assessment deemed the risks manageable.

Authorities have also flagged another, larger body of water at the foot of the glacier collapse.

“We estimate its area to be over 120,000 square ⁠metres, but its depth is currently unknown,” said Chen Hongqi, a senior engineer at the Ministry of Natural Resources’ Geological Disaster Technical Guidance Center.

Flood risks will remain until both lakes have fully drained, an official with Nepal’s Disaster Management Authority has said.

Looking for survivors

In bleak, ‌rainy conditions on Saturday (August 29, 2026) morning, more than 50 rescue workers combed through rubble of boulders and mud, looking for signs of life and calling out for survivors, CCTV reported.

Danger from above: On the Nepal flood

The first rescue team and a search dog reached the Gyirong border crossing complex on Friday (August 28, 2026) afternoon and found it reduced to ruins.

Dangerous conditions at the main disaster zone, compounded by damaged roads and disrupted communications, continue to hamper Chinese relief efforts, state news agency Xinhua said.

Forecasts show intermittent rain in the area over the next three days.

Authorities are racing to reopen a key highway leading to the border port. By Saturday (August 29, 2026) afternoon, crews had advanced within about 1.5 km (0.93 miles) ‌of the site. China’s death toll rose to seven early on Saturday (August 29, 2026), with 554 people still missing.

Nearly 500 villagers and construction workers, along with 555 tourists ​in the area, have been evacuated, Xinhua said.

Cause still unclear

The cause of the collapse remains unclear, but climate experts say global warming could be a factor. “We’re still not sure whether it was ⁠triggered by an earthquake or … by warm temperatures melting the glacier,” said Benjamin Horton, dean of the School of Energy and Environment at the ⁠City University of Hong Kong.

Videos shared on social media and verified by Reuters show the lower section of the glacier near the Langtang Lirung mountain peak breaking away and plunging into the valley below, triggering an avalanche of ‌ice and rock and a massive landslide. “One of the reasons why we don’t fully understand the mechanisms that cause the landslide is that we have a lack of data. So there has to be this investment in the science; there has to be this investment in society,” Horton said.

Published – August 29, 2026 05:23 pm IST

In a “preliminary assessment” of the situation following the flash flood in Nepal, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday (August 27, 2026) said at least 290 Indian nationals remain “uncontactable”.

On India’s support to Nepal as it deals with the disaster, which has killed at least 359 people in the country, MEA official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, “The second consignment of 37.5 tonnes of HADR (humanitarian assistance and disaster relief) material, medicines and food packets has been handed over to Mr. Mahabir Pun, Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, to support Nepal’s flood relief and rescue efforts. India remains committed to standing by Nepal and its people.”

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A drone view shows mud covering properties following a flash flood in Trishuli, Nuwakot district, Nepal, on August 27, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Press statement by Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav regarding the loss of life and property caused by flash floods in Nepal and the potential threat to Bihar:

In view of the likelihood of increased water flow into Bihar due to flash floods in Nepal, residents of vulnerable and affected areas in the relevant riparian districts must remain alert, and the Bihar government, in particular, must stay vigilant and prepared.

To tackle any adverse emergency or threat, the administration should maintain constant monitoring and ensure all necessary administrative and technical preparations — in addition to relief and rescue operations — are in place. The government must ensure 24/7 monitoring of dams and embankments to guarantee their structural integrity and safety.

We urge party workers to keep local residents informed and aware by providing necessary information and warnings, especially in the districts along the Gandak River — namely West Champaran, East Champaran, Gopalganj, Saran, Muzaffarpur and Vaishali.

– Amarnath Tewari

Eight South Koreans working on a hydropower plant were missing, ‌and 10 others were stranded, following a massive flash ⁠flood along the Nepal-Tibet border, Yonhap News Agency reported today, citing ‌South Korea’s Foreign Ministry.

The workers were employed by ‌Korea Energy and Doosan Enerbility ‌Co, ⁠the report said, ⁠adding that Nepal has deployed a rescue team to search the affected area.

Another 10 South ‌Korean workers affiliated with Doosan Enerbility are stranded in the area and awaiting a ‌helicopter sent by Nepalese authorities to evacuate them, it said.

South Korea has established ⁠a task force led by the Foreign Minister and plans ‌to send a joint rapid-response team comprising government officials and fire and police authorities to Nepal as soon as possible, the report said.

– Reuters