As devastating floods and landslides that struck the border area between Nepal and China's Tibet left hundreds dead and nearly 3,000 missing, the Nepal government urgently asked the international community for specialized technical assistance to manage the crisis. The Nepal government resumed search and rescue operations on the 29th after a temporary suspension due to deteriorating weather, but the scale of the damage is so large that recovery has been extremely difficult. Nepalese authorities projected that up to $5 billion (about 6.9 trillion won) will be needed to rebuild the devastated areas.
According to a compilation of reports from major outlets including Reuters on the 29th local time, Nepalese authorities resumed searches for the missing on the afternoon of the day after rain and fog halted the effort the day before. After a glacier collapse on the 26th triggered the floods and landslides that swept over key facilities including bridges and power plants, at least 669 people died in Nepal and seven in Tibet. The number of missing whose whereabouts are unknown stands at 2,426 in Nepal and 554 near Gyirong County in Tibet, for a total of 2,980. Among them are at least 540 foreigners, including Hindus who departed from India on a pilgrimage.
Along with the enormous loss of life, the destruction of key national infrastructure is expected to require funding equivalent to up to 10% of Nepal's total gross domestic product (GDP) for reconstruction. Swarwnim Wagle, Nepal's finance minister, said in a Reuters interview that "this is only an estimate and we are assessing the specific losses and damages," adding that about $4 billion to $5 billion will be needed for rebuilding.
Nepal, a poor Himalayan nation of 30 million people, felt limits to its own rescue and recovery efforts and asked its allies for assistance. Shisir Kanel, Nepal's foreign minister, appealed that specialized overseas support is urgently needed to rescue survivors buried in mud, restore severed transport and communications networks, and conduct DNA testing to identify victims.
The Indian government, which borders Nepal, airlifted 60 tons of relief supplies including medicines and food and dispatched disaster response personnel. China, parts of whose Tibet suffered the same disaster, also rushed five tunnel experts to aid in the search for survivors. The Malaysian government has set up a communication channel to locate 91 of its nationals who are out of contact and is cooperating with rescue authorities.
As the disaster entered its third day, conditions on the ground worsened by the hour. The administrative authorities in Nepal's Chitwan region announced in an official notice that bodies too decomposed to be identified were being recovered. To prevent a secondary disaster of epidemic outbreaks, authorities set a policy to collect only DNA samples from severely damaged remains and then bury them in open fields. Reuters reported that families of the missing are flocking to hospitals around the capital, Kathmandu, searching for relatives by looking at photos of bodies posted on the walls.