China and Nepal, which are suffering severe loss of life from the massive floods and landslides on the 26th, decided to greatly expand the sharing of real-time hydrological data to strengthen disaster early warning systems going forward. Nepal appealed to the international community for a joint response in the face of a cataclysm brought on by climate change.
On the 29th (local time), according to China's state-run Xinhua News Agency and AFP, Wang Yi, director of the Communist Party's Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office (who concurrently serves as foreign minister), and Bishnu Pukar Shrestha, Nepal Minister of Foreign Affairs, held a phone call that day and discussed in depth ways to expand the sharing of real-time hydrological data.
In the call, Director Wang said, "China shared key information such as disaster-area imagery, satellites, and hydrological data with Nepal," adding, "This included warning information related to an upstream landslide-dammed lake (natural-dam lake)." Wang emphasized solidarity between the two countries to overcome an unprecedented crisis, saying, "China and Nepal are connected by mountains and waters and are a community with a shared future."
The Chinese Embassy in Nepal also formally rebutted on the day speculation in some quarters that China could have warned Nepal in advance of the looming danger before the flooding. The embassy explained, "Due to the vast and complex Himalayan terrain and weakened ground from past earthquakes, high-precision monitoring and accurate forecasting remain an international challenge."
Rising Nepal, a pro-government outlet, reported that Minister Khanal expressed thanks for China's emergency humanitarian aid. The Nepal government had initially declared it would not accept any foreign rescue assistance, but as the scale of the damage snowballed, it reversed the policy and urgently accepted specialists from countries including China. In step with this, China swiftly dispatched five tunnel experts to the disaster site to help with tunnel rescue work at a Nepal hydropower plant. Minister Khanal responded that Nepal would work closely with China going forward to devote all efforts to rescuing isolated people and missing foreigners.
In a media interview, Minister Khanal said, "Nepal's contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is less than 0.01%, or about that level, but the people of Nepal are among the biggest victims of climate change and its impacts," calling for worldwide attention to preserving the Himalayan ecosystem. Simon Stiell, secretary-general of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), also issued a statement warning that warming from the use of fossil fuels is making such tragedies more frequent and severe.
Chinese authorities officially announced that as of 6 p.m. on the 29th, 16 people were dead and 546 were missing in the area around Rikaze in the Tibet autonomous region. The list of the missing included 261 foreigners from 23 countries, including Nepal, India, the United States, and the United Kingdom.