Thank you for joining our coverage of the deadly flash floods in Nepal and Tibet. Here’s what you need to know:

• Warning: This story contains graphic content.
• Thirty-four Australians are among hundreds of people reported missing after an avalanche of ice and rock triggered massive flash floods that swept through parts of Nepal and China on Wednesday.
• Nepal police said 157 bodies had so far been recovered. Neighbouring China has reported at least three people killed and 265 missing in a border community in Tibet.
• More than 400 tourists are unaccounted for, according to officials in Nepal, including from Australia, India, the US, UK and Canada.
• It is suspected that an earthquake struck the region and triggered the lower part of a glacier to collapse on the Lhende Khola river in Nepal, causing the floods.

The Australian embassy in Nepal said it was “deeply saddened” by the devastating flash flooding in the Rasuwa and Nuwakot regions of the country, where 34 Australians remain missing and 157 people are confirmed dead.

The embassy released a statement with the embassies of the United Kingdom, France, Finland, Norway and Switzerland.

“Our thoughts are with all those affected by this disaster. We express our solidarity with the people of Nepal during this difficult time,” they said.

“We encourage all those in affected areas to follow the guidance of local authorities and official safety advisories as the situation continues to evolve.”

Global small-group travel company G Adventures has confirmed that all its travellers and staff in Nepal and Tibet are safe, following the deadly flash flooding in the region.

“G Adventures can advise that all travellers and staff are safe and accounted for,” a spokesperson wrote on its website.

“G Adventures will continue to monitor the situation over the coming days and will post updates as necessary.”

The touring group offers several tours around Nepal, including a trek to Mount Everest and around Kathmandu, and through Tibet. It has re-routed tours of the region planned for the coming days, as the Nepalese government closes nearby highways amid safety concerns.

Officials at Nepal’s tourism ministry say more than 400 tourists are missing, of whom about 340 are foreigners.

Thousands of people also live in riverside settlements downstream from the flooding, including along the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli rivers. The authorities have not estimated the number of people missing and the extent of damage but said that bridges, schools and hydropower projects had been swept away, The New York Times reported

Sunil Sharma, a Nepal tourism board spokesperson, told the Toronto Star that 133 of the tourists were from India on a pilgrimage.

He said 47 of the missing tourists were from the US, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 24 from Canada. People from the Netherlands, Malaysia and South Africa were also among the missing, The New York Times reported.

Twelve British tourists had just crossed through Gyirong Port on a tour when a mud-filled wave more than 20 metres high hit, London’s Telegraph reported.

They glanced over their shoulders then began to run for their lives as the wall of water surged towards them down the narrow valley.

The tour was led by Alpine Eco Trek, a local service that arranges regular 10-day trips from the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu to the Tibetan mountain of Kailash.

“Both guides went offline at 8.42am,” said Ram Kumar Adhikari, the manager of the tour company. “The whole area was swept away by the flood. Even the Tibet immigration office,” he said.

Initial reports from Nepali officials suggested an earthquake in the area could have caused the lower part of a glacier to collapse and trigger the floods.

Security footage captured on the Chinese side of the Nepal-Tibet border showed many people fleeing before a torrent of rock, mud and water destroyed buildings and vehicles and took many lives.

The German Research Centre for Geosciences said there was a 4.4-magnitude quake about seven minutes before the time shown on the security footage time stamp.

An initial study of Planet Labs satellite imagery indicated that a landslide of ice and rock triggered a debris-laden flood in the Lhende River, about 20 kilometres north-east of the Nepal-China Rasuwagadhi border crossing, Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said on X.

“It was a huge gush of mud coming straight towards us. As it got closer, it kept rising higher and higher,” said Keshav Prasad Baral, a 68-year-old survivor who was being treated at a small hospital.

“When I saw it enter our home I tried to grab my wife’s hand and take her to the terrace. But she was swept away by the mud.

“Four or five hours later a helicopter came to rescue me. My wife is still somewhere beneath the mud. She’s gone.”

Reuters

The deadly flash flooding occurred in a border area of Nepal and China.

The Himalayan region, which spans several countries including India, is especially vulnerable to heavy rains, floods and landslides because of warming due to human-caused climate change. Research shows that extreme weather events, including heatwaves, rains and melting glaciers, have become more frequent.

Nepali labourer Bibek Kumal was digging a toilet pit outside a newly built house on Wednesday when a wall of water, mud and rock came roaring down, sweeping him and everything near him away.

Kumal, 24, was working in Bidur, downstream from the worst-hit Rasuwa district, near Nepal’s Himalayan border with China’s Tibet, when he heard a hissing sound. His four co-workers, standing above the 1.5 metre-deep pit, shouted at him to get out and run.

By the time he scrambled out of the pit his co-workers had already fled.

“I started running. Then a wall of water came thundering down as if it was an earthquake,” Kumal said from his bed at Kathmandu’s National Trauma Centre, his brother Dinesh sitting beside him.

The torrent swept him downstream amid mud and debris but “luckily I was stuck up in a mango tree”, he said. “Had there been no mango tree I would have been washed away to death.”

Reuters