Missing toll in Nepal floods jumps by nearly 1,000 in a single day; combined dead and missing top 8,000

The number of people missing from a massive glacial collapse and flood disaster that struck the Himalayan border region between Nepal and China late last month jumped by nearly 1,000 in a single day as authorities revised their count.

Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) said Wednesday that floods and debris flows that hit the Bagmati Province region in north-central Nepal on Aug. 26 had killed 1,403 people as of that day, according to AFP and local authorities.

The disaster is believed to have been triggered when part of a glacier on Langtang Lirung mountain at an elevation of roughly 5,200 meters collapsed, setting off a massive avalanche of ice and rock that transformed into torrents and mudslides as it swept down the valleys.

The same disaster killed 43 people in China's Tibet Autonomous Region, which borders Nepal, bringing the combined death toll for both countries to 1,446.

The Nepalese government said only 105 of the 1,403 recovered bodies — just 7.4 percent — have been identified. Identification efforts have been hampered by severe damage to the remains caused by the debris flows and torrents, as well as the presence of a significant number of foreign victims.

The missing count also rose sharply. The number of people unaccounted for in Nepal stood at 5,179 as of Tuesday but jumped to 6,150 by Wednesday.

Adding 519 people who lost contact in Tibet, the total number of missing across both countries reached 6,669. Combined with the death toll, the overall figure of dead and missing stands at 8,115.

Nine South Koreans remain missing, including six employees of Doosan Enerbility and three from Korea South-East Power (KOEN), who were working on construction of the Upper Trishuli (UT)-1 hydropower plant in Nepal.

The second team of South Korea's Korea Disaster Relief Team (KDRT) deployed to Nepal conducted drone searches Wednesday with the assistance of the Nepalese military in an effort to locate the missing South Koreans.

KDRT team leader Yoon Ju-seok and two other team members landed by helicopter in Dunche, near the UT-1 plant construction site, then traveled by vehicle to the Ramche area at an elevation of 2,000 meters.

The team then conducted drone searches on the mountain slopes near the plant's main camp but found nothing.

The second KDRT team is set to withdraw from Nepal on Thursday night after completing its planned one-week search-and-rescue operation.

Nepalese Prime Minister Balendra Shah plans to attend the UN General Assembly, which opens next week, to call for stronger action on climate change and demand compensation from developed nations for damage caused by the floods.

Earlier, Nepalese Foreign Affairs Minister Sishir Khanal said "Nepal's greenhouse gas emissions are in effect negligible, yet we are paying the ultimate price for a global crisis we did not cause."

Nepal accounted for just 0.05 percent of global annual carbon dioxide emissions in 2024, according to the Global Carbon Project, an international research initiative. China, by contrast, was responsible for more than 30 percent of global emissions, and the United States for more than 10 percent.

The Nepalese government estimated total damage and losses from the floods at 408.29 billion Nepalese rupees ($2.63 billion), and projected reconstruction costs at 723.3 billion Nepalese rupees (about 6.3 trillion won).