On the 26th, the Gyirong port of entry and exit, which China had built up for more than 10 years to replace the gateway destroyed by the 2015 Nepal earthquake, was buried by floods and landslides. It was the only land gateway connecting China and Nepal and the key hub that handled the largest volume of Nepal's imports from China. China's $2.8 billion-class trans-Himalayan railway and Belt and Road projects, which used this route as their terminus, were brought to a halt all at once.
According to Xinhua and others on the 27th (local time), in Gyirong County, Tibet Autonomous Region, China, where the port is located, entire buildings were buried by the floods and landslides, and mud piled up an average of 1.5 meters. Most major roads around Gyirong County are cut off, and communications and power are down. Chinese authorities on the 27th counted three dead in the area and 558 missing.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived at the site on the 27th with 500 troops and armed police and is directing rescue efforts, but as of the 28th, operations have been temporarily suspended. China Central Television (CCTV) said that as of 2 p.m. on the 28th, a barrier lake (a natural-dam lake) 10 kilometers upstream from the Gyirong disaster site began to overflow again, prompting rescue teams to stop work at the entrance to Laojiang Village in Gyirong Town. With searches temporarily halted, the tally and updates of the missing are also being delayed.
China's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Emergency Management each allocated 120 million yuan (about 24.7 billion won) for relief at the Gyirong site, and the National Development and Reform Commission allocated 100 million yuan (about 20.6 billion won) for Gyirong's recovery. However, major outlets reported that recovery will likely take considerable time, as normal operations are difficult enough that the National Immigration Administration suspended issuance of local travel permits effective midnight on the 28th.
Just across a river from the Gyirong port of entry and exit is Rasuwagadhi, Nepal, which suffered the most damage in this disaster. The two towns were linked by the Miteri Bridge, which means friendship in Nepali. Until two months before it collapsed, cargo volumes had been steadily increasing. As of June 23 this year, the number of border crossings through this port exceeded 100,000, up 12.85% from the same period last year.
China already lost its main gateway once before because of an earthquake 11 years ago. The massive earthquake that struck the Kathmandu area of Nepal in 2015 destroyed facilities at the Zhangmu port of entry and exit on the Chinese side of the border. Until then, the corridor linking China's Zhangmu port with Nepal's Tatopani handled 69% of Nepal's exports to China. After four years of reconstruction, Zhangmu reopened to trade in 2019, but volumes did not return to previous levels. The Chinese government widened the road from Nepal's Rasuwa to Gyirong instead of Zhangmu and built new border inspection facilities and logistics centers. Gyirong, not Zhangmu, took over as the port of entry and exit for Nepal. But in this disaster, the Miteri Bridge, built up over the past 10 years, and the border facilities that served as checkpoints and customs lanes for both countries were all washed away.
In China's economy, the absolute scale of trade through this route is extremely small compared with the effort the Chinese government has invested. According to the Nepal Central Bank, in the 2025–2026 fiscal year, China accounted for only 16.8% of Nepal's total trade. India accounted for 61.7%, nearly four times China's share. During the same period, Nepal's sales of goods to China fell 65.2% from the previous year. Even so, in foreign direct investment (FDI) approved by the Nepal government, China accounted for 48%, about three times more than India (17.9%). This is interpreted to mean that China expanded engagement by building roads, power plants, and transmission lines rather than buying and selling goods with Nepal.
Nepal pivoted toward China after a major clash with India over constitutional issues in 2015. When Nepal promulgated a new constitution without India's input, India imposed near-total controls on cross-border trade for nearly five months. Landlocked Nepal brings in most goods through Indian ports. As imports of fuel and medicines it depends on were cut off, Nepalese society suffered turmoil for nearly half a year. After this, in April of the following year Nepal signed a trade and transit agreement with China, and in June 2018, President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli of Nepal agreed to build the "Trans-Himalayan Multi-dimensional Connectivity Network."
Commonly called the Trans-Himalayan Economic Corridor, the plan bundles the two countries' border roads and railways, aviation, transmission lines, and communications networks into one. In 2019, Nepal also won the right to use four Chinese seaports—Tianjin, Shenzhen and others—and three inland ports, including Lanzhou and Lhasa. China would open an outlet for landlocked Nepal to substitute for India, and in return, gain a route over the Himalayas into South Asia.
From 2000 to 2017, China pledged a total of $4.5 billion (about 6.23 trillion won) in investments, grants, and concessional loans to Nepal. After the 2015 Kathmandu earthquake, it separately provided $483 million (about 669 billion won) for reconstruction. The flagship Pokhara International Airport received $216 million (about 299 billion won) in Export-Import Bank of China loans.
The trans-Himalayan railway linking Gyirong and Kathmandu is the core of this network. The Nepal section, connecting Kathmandu, Nuwakot, and Rasuwa, is 72.25 kilometers—about the distance from Seoul to Pyeongtaek—but 98.5% of it must be built with bridges and tunnels. A preliminary feasibility study estimated the Nepal section's construction cost at a minimum of $2.75 billion (about 3.81 trillion won). The Kathmandu Post reported in May that Nepal and China signed a basic Belt and Road agreement on Dec. 4, 2024, selecting 10 projects, but most had not even begun preliminary feasibility studies a year and a half later.
Because of this flood, the projects named in the agreement, including the trans-Himalayan railway, lost their sites before even starting preliminary feasibility studies, let alone breaking ground. It is not even clear whether China will rebuild the destroyed border facilities at the same Gyirong port. Even before this disaster, Nepal's Rende Khola area suffered frequent flooding. Reuters reported that on July 8 last year, debris surged down in the same way, sweeping away the entire Miteri Bridge and closing the border for nearly six months.
China hastily reopened the route on Dec. 29 last year by installing a temporary prefabricated bridge. But this disaster wiped out eight months of efforts to restore the trade corridor. On the Nepalese side of the border, the Timure dry port, intended to serve as a hinterland logistics hub, was about 80% built when last year's flood destroyed its warehouse and retaining wall, and construction has been halted for more than a year. The Kathmandu Post said, "The site manager of the Chinese contractor judged the site itself unsuitable and proposed relocating the facility, but Nepal failed to provide an alternative site."
Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz in Austria, told the AP on the 27th, "Some parts of the Himalayas are now too risky to live in," and said, "It is extremely difficult to monitor thousands of glaciers, steep slopes, and valleys across the entire Himalaya."