Μake us preferred on Google Nepal’s disaster authority sharply revised its missing persons count upward on Wednesday, raising the figure to 6,150 following renewed data collection and verification in the districts hit by the August 26 flood. Disaster authority spokeswoman Shanti Mahat told AFP that details on the missing had been gathered from district offices and the figures updated after cross-checking, with the total jumping from 5,179 reported just the day before.
The number of bodies recovered so far stands at 1,403, of which 105 have been formally identified, according to Nepal’s disaster agency. Across the border in China, state media reports 43 dead and 519 still missing.
Combined, the toll from the glacial mountain collapse on the Nepal-China border now stands at 1,446 dead and at least 6,669 missing across both countries. Several hundred foreign nationals, including tourists and pilgrims, are among those unaccounted for.
Witnesses have described the scale of the flooding as unlike anything they had previously seen, and Nepal’s government has attributed the disaster to the effects of rising global temperatures on the Himalayan region. Nepal, a mostly rural country of 30 million people, accounts for only a small share of global greenhouse gas emissions compared with industrialized nations.
Prime Minister Balendra Shah is set to make his first foreign trip since taking office next week, traveling to address the UN General Assembly on the issue. Nepal has estimated the cost of rebuilding after the floods at roughly $4.78 billion.
Source: CNA
