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Key developments
• Death toll climbs: More than 600 people have been killed in Nepal, according to police, after catastrophic flooding at its border area with China. Around 2,500 people are missing in both countries, including dozens of Americans and other foreign nationals.
• Scenes of devastation: Chinese state media reported there is no sign of survivors at a border crossing which was engulfed by the flood wave. And in Nepal, health officials said residents of a “whole village that seems to have been washed away” are in “dire need of support.”
• Flood fears: More rain is expected in flood-affected areas this weekend. Officials are closely monitoring a second newly formed lake, which has fueled concerns about further flooding.
• On the ground: As the end of the 72-hour “golden window” of disaster survival draws near, CNN teams have witnessed devastated neighborhoods and families’ anguish while they desperately search for information on their missing relatives.
CNN visits one of the Nepali towns most devastated by the flood
More rain is expected in flood-affected areas in Nepal this weekend, which can further complicate search and rescue operations. CNN’s Hanako Montgomery visited Dhunge Bazaar, one of the towns most devastated by the flood on Saturday morning.
"Alarm bells ringing" over second newly formed lake in the flood zone
Jeffrey Kargel, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, said the aerial footage of a second newly formed lake in the mountains near the flood zone in Nepal is “extremely concerning.”
“We already know that water perched up there would be an unstable mass,” Kargel told CNN’s John Berman on Friday.
The first barrier lake formed after the initial landslide broke its banks earlier on Friday.
If the second lake were to burst its banks, water could flow into the landslide dammed lake further downstream, and “together they could burst out very, very rapidly,” Kargel said.
Both bodies of water sit upstream of an area where hundreds of people were killed by catastrophic flash floods on the Nepal-China border on Wednesday.
Kargel said the torrent of water and debris was equivalent to at least 500,000 large dump truck loads of rock and ice. A scientist previously described the flood wave as “liquid concrete.”
Nepal death toll rises to 616
The death toll from the catastrophic flooding in Nepal has risen to 616, according to an update from Nepali police Saturday morning.
Police said 2,301 people were injured and are receiving treatment.
About 2,500 people are still unaccounted for on both the Nepali and Chinese sides of the border, including dozens of Americans and other foreign nationals.
No sign of survivors at "flattened" border crossing, China officials say
There is no sign of survivors at the Chinese border crossing which was engulfed by a ferocious flood wave earlier this week, rescue officials told state media.
The wall of water had left behind “no discernible outline of any structures,” they added.
In some of the most horrifying footage from Wednesday’s disaster, the deluge was shown completely overcoming a large administrative building at Gyirong Port, tossing around large vehicles as though they were toys.
Chinese rescuers arrived Friday afternoon at the land port, an area over 3,800 meters above sea level.
“The buildings within the mudslide’s impact zone have largely been flattened, with no discernible outline of any structures,” Liu Maolin, a rescue team leader, told state broadcaster CCTV.
“The ground is covered by thick layers of mud and rubble, with extensive and deep deposits, while the port’s infrastructure has been particularly severely damaged.”
So far, no survivors have been found, but the team “will never give up as long as there is even the slightest hope,” Liu said.
Carrying dozens of kilograms of equipment, the crew is battling extreme conditions where “even taking simple steps could trigger severe chest tightness, shortness of breath, dizziness and headaches,” China Emergency Management News reported.
Disaster zone in Nepal offers tough and treacherous realities
On the ground in Nepal, we are witnessing first-hand the difficulties of traversing the devastation left behind by Wednesday’s flash floods – difficulties troubling survivors and rescuers as they try to respond to the disaster.
Communication is down, making it difficult to send updates and speak to our teams about where we are and what we’re seeing.
Driving to the worst-affected areas is also difficult. Mud and debris left behind by the flooding are blocking roads, which limits how far we can go. It’s also raining now, making navigation harder and driving conditions worse. There’s also the constant fear of further floods.
Due to the rain, the mud covering towns and villages is now loosening, so even walking is very difficult. Our cameraman just stepped into a pile of mud about 2 feet deep.
"Whole village seems to have been washed away," WHO official says
Health officials said residents of a Nepali village wiped out by Wednesday’s catastrophic flooding are in “dire need of support.”
Video showed destroyed homes and mud-caked streets in the flood-hit Nuwakot district.
The WHO has been assessing what the area needs and responding to the government of Nepal “with whatever best we can at this moment,” Chawla said. This includes providing emergency kits with health supplies, tents and other items arriving via Kathmandu.
Family members sleep outside hospital in Kathmandu waiting for news of loved ones
As dawn breaks in Nepal on Saturday, families hoping for news of their loved ones face the sinking reality that the 72-hour “golden window” of disaster survival will come to a close on Saturday morning.
At the T.U. Teaching Hospital in the capital Kathmandu, more than a dozen people slept outside on benches or the floor overnight, hoping to wake up to news about their loved ones.
But the list of names of the survivors being treated at the hospital remains at 31, a number which hasn’t changed since Friday.
Desperate families have taped posters to the wall outside the hospital showing photos of their relatives and phone numbers, hoping to track down their whereabouts.
The posters include an appeal for information about two young boys, Dorje Tamang and Dimey Wangchu Shyangba — a heartbreaking reminder of the sheer scale of this disaster, which has left hundreds dead and thousands more than missing in Nepal and China.
Historically, the first 48 to 72 hours after natural disasters are widely regarded as the “golden” window to reach people who might be buried alive under rubble — after that period the chances of survival without a water source diminishes rapidly.
CNN’s Will Ripley reports from Kathmandu, Nepal, where the search for missing loved ones includes hospitals and the morgue.
More rain expected in flood-affected areas in Nepal this weekend
More rain could be coming for the flood-affected areas in Nepal, Rajendra Sharma, a senior meteorologist for the country’s national disaster agency told CNN Saturday morning, as concerns grow over a second newly formed lake in the mountains that has been swelling in size.
Light to moderate rain is falling in parts of Gandaki, Bagmati and Lumbini provinces, which are near the flood-hit parts of the country, according to the latest weather report from Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology.
“As there is a possibility of further rainfall in these and surrounding areas, the public are requested to exercise necessary caution,” the report said.
Authorities in Nepal are closely monitoring the two lakes formed from Wednesday’s devastating landslide, Reuters reported Friday, citing an unnamed staffer from Nepal’s Disaster Management Authority.
Both bodies of water sit upstream of an area where hundreds of people were killed by the catastrophic flash floods on the Nepal-China border on Wednesday.
Nepal choppers make early-morning rescue flights
A CNN team heard helicopters flying from Trishuli barracks from around 4.30 a.m. local time Saturday, as rescue operations get underway again.
A barracks at Trishuli has become the nerve center of rescue efforts after Wednesday’s deluge, with hundreds of people seeking information about missing loved ones.
On Friday, seven military and seven civilian helicopters made more than 200 trips and rescued about 900 people, according to a Nepal Army official.
Later on Saturday morning, a handful of people had gathered outside the barracks. But as clouds and rain moved in, the flights appeared to have paused.
In the capital Kathmandu, medicine and other relief materials are being sent to flood-affected areas, according to an official from the national disaster response agency.
Helicopters are ferrying medicine, food, clothes and mattresses to survivors, as well as body bags for the disaster’s victims.
Bhadra Sharma contributed reporting.
Nepal flood survivor recalls narrow escape: "I'm really grateful"
Italian professional photographer Stefano Lotumolo was on a bus when the floods hit the Nepal-China border on Wednesday. While him and his bus mates were able to escape, the people on the vehicles behind them were not so fortunate.
“The sound was unbelievable,” Lotumolo said. “It was a big sound of death everywhere.”
According to Lotumolo, his group had about 30 seconds to a minute to get out of the bus and scramble to higher ground. They took shelter in a small hut with around 50 other survivors and waited until military helicopters came the next morning.
Lotumolo said that he needed time to process what happened.
“I’m really grateful,” he said. “I’ve seen death everywhere, but I’m alive.”
"Time is crucial": New Jersey man pleads for search of wife swept away in Nepal flood
Ganesh Bale said his wife, Daya Ganesh Bale, was about to leave Hotel Kailash in the Nepali village of Timure while on a spiritual tour when the flood hit Wednesday. The surge leveled the hotel and swept Daya and other guests downstream, Ganesh told CNN.
He said he has been talking with the tour company and is pressing it to arrange a crew to search the area for his wife. But Ganesh said they’ve met resistance because the area remains restricted.
“Time is crucial. Every hour they’re there without someone, the chances these guys survive is diminishing,” said Ganesh, who returned to New Jersey with their son on Thursday.
Fortunately for father and son they are surrounded by a supportive group of friends, including staff from Daya’s dental practice, and family in the nearby suburbs.
“My son and me are trying to be as positive as possible because that’s the only way to move forward,” Ganesh said.
Loved ones of geologist missing in Nepal "still hoping he's alive somewhere"
The last time Abisha Dhital heard from her friend Mukesh Nepal was just minutes before the landslide that triggered the flooding on the Nepal-China border.
It was 8:30 a.m. Wednesday in Kathmandu and her friend was getting ready for his work as a geologist on the Upper Trishuli Hydropower Project, but it was evening in Oklahoma and Dhital would soon be in bed.
When she woke a few hours later, Dhital’s social media feeds were full of videos of the unfolding disaster. She had also received a WhatsApp message from a geologists’ group that said her friend was among the missing.
Dhital is still trying to piece together what happened to him. She told CNN she spoke with some of Nepal’s colleagues who managed to escape. When they last saw him, he was in a car with a driver, heading toward a tunnel near the worksite to warn others, Dhital said.
Nepal’s girlfriend is also in Oklahoma, thousands of miles from her missing partner and beside herself in grief. “Having his girlfriend next to me is more terrifying because it’s so tough to handle grief which we have never seen before,” Dhital said. “It’s really painful.”
She and her friends are taking turns to stay with Nepal’s girlfriend as they await any news. “We’re not letting her stay alone.”
Dhital spends her time combing through Facebook posts hoping to see news of her friend. “The pain of waiting is worse when you don’t know what the outcome is,” she said.
“I thought that my life was over,” landslide survivor says
Several choppers ferried survivors to a makeshift landing strip in Trishuli, Nepal, on Friday.
One man, after getting off one of the helicopters, told CNN’s Hanako Montgomery that he was trapped on a mountain for days, thinking he would die of hunger before being rescued.
And as time ticks on, fears grow for families searching for their lost loved ones as power has not yet been restored to many areas after Wednesday’s catastrophic landslide.
But Montgomery also recounted some extraordinary tales of survival, including rescuers who pulled out more than 100 people trapped inside tunnels in a hydroelectric power plant in Rasuwa. Upon their rescue, some survivors were so covered in mud from the tunnel that it appeared they had an entire second skin, Montgomery added.
Video shows house standing as floodwater rages
Video verified by CNN shows a light blue building standing as floodwaters rage around it in Bidur.
People on the balcony of the house look on as rivers of mud carrying debris and even floating vehicles plow through the street, slamming into the structure. But, even as it is surrounded by the fast-moving floodwater, the house remains standing.
CNN is attempting to reach the people seen trapped in the house.
See the scale of the damage after devastating flooding on the Nepal-China border
Video footage and satellite imagery shows the immense scale of the disaster on the Nepal-China border after a landslide created flash flooding earlier this week.
See what things look like along the river:
CNN’s Amy O’Kruk, Annette Choi, Byron Manley, Soph Warnes, Becky Pinnington, Rosa de Acosta, Marco Storel and Grace Widyatmadja contributed reporting.
Nepal floods reshape global celebrations of major Hindu festival
The devastating flood is reshaping how Nepali diaspora communities worldwide mark Teej, a Hindu festival celebrating longevity and the arrival of monsoon season.
Typically involving colorful festivities, dancing, prayer and traditional food, Teej is mainly celebrated by women in late August and early to mid-September to pray for the long life and well-being of their husbands, or to wish for a compatible future partner.
This year, celebrations look different as communities honor and support flood victims.
The New Zealand Nepal Society canceled its Auckland gathering and is holding a candlelight vigil instead, according to its president. Like many others, the group is participating in a fundraising effort through the Nepali government.
In Queens, home to one of the largest Nepali communities in the US, other local groups are emphasizing customary spiritual rituals, with Nepali community leaders saying celebrations would be inappropriate while the community is grieving.
The Nepali American Organization of Ohio is allowing ticketholders for its canceled celebration to donate their registration fee to government relief efforts, its president told CNN.
Teej aims to highlight the bounty of monsoon season, making this year’s celebration poignant for those grappling with flood losses.
“Specific areas can’t celebrate monsoons if they are suffering but other people can,” said Narbada Chhetri, former co-executive director at a New York-based women-led nonprofit that supports the Nepali-speaking community. “Compassion is more important than celebration this year. We can celebrate next year but those whose family is gone cannot bring back those lives.”
Relief group CEO says Nepal flood recovery will be a "long road ahead"
The disaster relief group All Hands and Hearts has been active in Nepal since the country’s devastating 2015 earthquake, according to CEO Nate Mook, and the team was on the ground “ready to go” as soon as flooding hit on Wednesday.
“It’s a lot of search and rescue,” Mook told Boris Sanchez on “CNN News Central.”
“Some areas are yet to be reached. They are only accessible by army helicopter.”
The team has been working to get supplies to the army and evacuation centers during the “incredibly difficult” first 48 hours of the disaster, Mook said.
The group’s work is dangerous. They have been forced to evacuate twice as new lakes formed and burst their banks, sending floodwater downstream. More water, mud and debris could surge through at any moment while rescuers are trying to reach survivors.
Mook said it is going to be “a long road ahead” for those affected by the floods.
Members of the All Hands and Hearts team lived through the 2015 disaster, with some Nepali staff having previously lived in displacement centers for months on end.
Nepali mother reunites with missing children after agonizing searching through jungle
A mother has described her relief at finding her young children alive after being separated from them for two days during Nepal’s deadly floods.
After hearing what sounded like an earthquake on Wednesday, Matti Maya Tamang, a 28-year-old mother of two, rushed toward her children’s school in the northern district of Rasuwa. But when she arrived, the landscape was almost unrecognizable and the school building had been destroyed.
“I had completely lost hope - that I no longer have my children. I was going through a period of grief, and I couldn’t even control myself and thought that there was no point in staying alive,” Tamang told Reuters.
Unknown to Tamang, her eldest son, 8-year-old, Zoyal Ghale, had survived the flash floods by running into a forest and climbing up trees to escape a devastating avalanche of ice and rock.
During a frantic search through a leech-filled jungle and across rivers, Tamang moved from shelter to shelter looking for her two missing children.
She eventually learned both children were alive, albeit injured. Reuters video showed Tamang reuniting with Ghale, who lay in a Khatmandu hospital bed with his broken leg in a cast.
Atlanta’s Nepali community rallies to support flood relief in Nepal
The Nepali community in Atlanta is rallying to support flood victims in Nepal, with two concerts and a candlelight vigil planned in the coming days.
A Nepal flood relief concert is scheduled for October 3, featuring legendary Nepali rock band Mukti & Revival. All of the concert’s net proceeds will go toward flood relief funds established by the Government of Nepal, according to Amit Kathiwada, an organizer with Shangri-La Events & Entertainment.
Meanwhile, another concert featuring popular Nepali band Kandara is taking place in Atlanta today. Organizers say all profits from the event will also be donated to flood relief efforts in Nepal.
More than 5,000 people who immigrated to the United States from Nepal live in Atlanta and surrounding areas, according to Raju Thapa, president of the Nepali Cultural Center (NCC).
The NCC is also organizing a candlelight vigil on Sunday as members of Atlanta’s Nepali community mourn the devastation and seek support for those affected.
“I would like to request the world to help provide Nepal food, tents and financial aid. Help Nepal. Save humanity,” Thapa told CNN.
