A wall of water and debris tore down the Bhote Koshi valley on the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday morning, destroying villages, hydropower projects and the main trading route between the two countries. The number of people confirmed dead has risen through Wednesday and Thursday, and the number reported missing is larger still.

Because the figures have moved fast and different organisations are counting different things, this article sets out what each source says and when it said it, rather than presenting a single total.

The numbers, and who is giving them

Early reports on Wednesday put the death toll at 17. By Wednesday evening, agencies were reporting at least 95 to 98. By Thursday, Reuters reported 157 bodies recovered, and CNN and Al Jazeera reported more than 160 confirmed killed.

On the missing, Nepali officials initially reported 403 people, including 341 foreign nationals. By Thursday, CNN was reporting that more than 1,300 people were unaccounted for. That jump does not necessarily mean the disaster grew; it usually means the search widened and more families reported relatives they could not reach.

The missing foreign nationals reported by Nepal’s tourism board spokesman Sunil Sharma included 133 Indians on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, 47 Americans, 34 Australians, 33 Britons and 24 Canadians. South Korea said nine of its citizens working on a hydropower plant were missing. Malaysia’s foreign ministry said travel agencies had lost contact with 11 Malaysians. Russia’s embassy reported four. At least 62 missing Nepalis were trekking near Gosaikunda Lake for the Janai Purnima festival, and police spokesman Abi Narayan Kafle said at least 28 police officers were missing.

Across the border, China’s Xinhua news agency reported three killed and “major casualties” in Gyirong county, where a mudslide struck the port of entry and cut roads, power and communications in the Shigatse region.

What happened on the ground

The Bhote Koshi flooded at about 9am on Wednesday. Rasuwa is a district of roughly 50,000 people, sitting on the road that connects Kathmandu to the Chinese border at Rasuwagadhi. The trading towns of Timure and Syapru Besi were among the worst hit, and helicopters could not land because the water was too high.

Satellite images taken on 14 and 26 August show Timure before and after: a swollen river with structures on both banks damaged or gone. Officials said at least 19 bridges and nearly 40 kilometres of road had been swept away, along with several hydropower projects built along the river.

Tula Bahadur BK, a health worker in Rasuwa, told Reuters that settlements next to the river had been completely swept away and that five of his own relatives were missing. Residents in Nuwakot, downstream, described half an hour between first warning and the water arriving.

The cause is not what was first reported

Initial accounts attributed the flood to heavy monsoon rain or to excessive snowmelt. Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority has since said that an initial study of Planet Labs satellite imagery indicates a landslide of ice and rock triggered a debris-laden flood in the Lhende River, about 12 miles northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border crossing.

That distinction matters, and we look at it separately in our check on whether this was a glacial lake outburst flood, and at the mechanism itself in this explainer.

Why so many foreigners were in the valley

Late August is not a strong season for trekking in Nepal, because it falls inside the monsoon. It is, however, a main season for the pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a site sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and followers of Bon. The overland route runs through Rasuwa district and out through the Rasuwagadhi crossing, which put a large number of pilgrims and their guides on exactly the road the flood destroyed.

The Janai Purnima festival drew Nepali trekkers to the Gosaikunda lakes in the same district at the same time.

The response

Nepal has asked both India and China for help with rescue operations, government spokesman Sasmit Pokharel said. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah and offered humanitarian assistance. Officials have warned residents along the Trishuli, Bhotekoshi and Narayani rivers to stay away from the banks.

We will update this article as verified figures change, and will say what changed rather than quietly revising the numbers.

Sources

• CNN live coverage, on the missing figure and satellite imagery of Timure, 26-27 August 2026
• Associated Press via PBS NewsHour, with the tourism board and police figures
• NBC News / Reuters, on the NDRRMA satellite analysis and eyewitness accounts
• Al Jazeera, on the Chinese side of the border and Nepal’s requests for assistance