Watch Floor Brief · Disaster Response
There is a massive search-and-rescue operation underway along the Nepal-Tibet border. More than 900 people are confirmed dead, thousands remain missing, and among them are approximately 85 Americans. Nine Americans have been evacuated and, as of the latest reporting in this brief, the State Department was not aware of any confirmed American deaths.
The part of this story that deserves more attention is why so many Americans happened to be in one of the most remote parts of the Himalayas at the same time. Many were pilgrims. They had traveled thousands of miles to visit Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred mountain for Hindus, Tibetan Buddhists, Jains, and followers of the Bon religion.
The glacier collapse.
Early Wednesday morning, part of a glacier near the China-Nepal border collapsed. The event was so violent that seismic stations detected it as the equivalent of a magnitude 5.2 event. Scientists now believe the seismic signal was produced by the collapse itself, not by an earthquake that caused it. Bedrock beneath part of the glacier gave way, carrying an enormous mass of ice and rock down the mountain and into the river system.
Water, ice, rock, and mud moved through the Lende, Bhotekoshi, and Trishuli river systems. Buildings disappeared. Bridges and roads were destroyed. Entire settlements were hit, with destruction continuing for more than 60 miles downstream. One of the places directly in the path was the Nepal-Tibet border crossing.
Why so many Americans were at the border.
Mount Kailash is in Tibet, so pilgrims traveling there commonly move through this remote part of Nepal before crossing the border. August is part of the peak pilgrimage season, which meant groups were concentrated around immigration facilities on both sides of the border when the flood arrived.
One of those groups was traveling with the Isha Foundation, an India-based organization with a large following in the United States and a campus in Tennessee. The foundation reported 77 of its pilgrims missing, including 22 Americans. According to the foundation, the group leader checked in at about 9:05 a.m. to say they had reached the immigration center. The flood struck around 9:14. Nine minutes separated the check-in from the disaster.
The people behind the number.
The missing Americans include a mother traveling with her 14-year-old daughter, a 72-year-old retiree from Long Island on a Hindu pilgrimage, a software engineer from Cincinnati, a retired World Bank employee from Virginia, and a Texas couple who made the journey to mark a 60th birthday. Their families are reconstructing Wednesday morning from WhatsApp messages, hotel records, photographs, visa approvals, tour manifests, and border-crossing records.
One missing American sent his family a video from his hotel at 6:47 that morning showing the Trishuli River below him and green mountains covered in mist. Less than two hours later, the glacier collapsed. Another family received confirmation that a visa had been approved at the border checkpoint at 8:35. Roughly 35 minutes later, the area was devastated.
That is why the number 85 matters, but it is also why it can change. There is no single master list showing exactly where every traveler was. Nepal has records. China has records. The State Department has records. Tour companies and families have their own information. All of it has to be reconciled in a place where roads are gone and communications are damaged.
A second rescue problem is underground.
Officials also reported 933 hydropower workers missing from 11 projects in Rasuwa and Nuwakot. Many were working in large tunnels when the flood came through. Entrances were buried under mud, rock, and debris, and some workers may have moved deeper into the tunnels to escape the water.
Rescuers have used excavators, drills, controlled explosions, cameras, and air pumped into openings. Indian and Chinese tunnel specialists are helping Nepalese teams. At some locations workers were reportedly able to communicate after the disaster, which is why crews are still digging and why the missing count should not automatically be treated as a death toll.
Why accounting for Americans overseas takes time.
The State Department does not maintain a real-time location system for every American traveling abroad. After a disaster, consular officers have to build that picture from families, tour operators, hotels, hospitals, local governments, rescue teams, and eventually the identification of remains. In a remote cross-border disaster, that process is even harder.
Hundreds of bodies have reportedly been recovered downstream and many remain unidentified. At the same time, some people on missing lists may be stranded, evacuated but not yet reconciled against the lists, trapped, or simply without communications. Both the death toll and the missing count will continue to move as rescue and identification work progresses.
What I’m watching.
First, the border crossing, because a significant number of missing American pilgrims were at or near the immigration facilities when the flood arrived. Second, the hydropower tunnels, where there is still a possibility that workers survived underground. Third, identification, which will begin resolving overlapping missing-person lists.
And then there is one number: 85. Hopefully it is lower tomorrow, and lower again the day after that. Behind every name is a family waiting for a phone to ring.