Nepal Budhi Gandaki flood: 5 missing, 49 rescued

Summary: Five people — two women and three men — are missing after the October 11 flash flood on Nepal’s Budhi Gandaki River in Gorkha district. Authorities said the Nepal Army and rescue teams saved 49 people, including one foreign national.

What is confirmed

• Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority coordinated evacuations and told riverside residents to move to safer ground.
• Reuters and the Kathmandu Post reported that houses, two suspension footbridges, a road bridge and a hydropower construction camp were damaged or swept away.
• Six people at risk near Jagat were rescued, while 18 workers at the hydropower site reached safety, Reuters reported.
• Warnings extended to downstream areas in Gorkha, Tanahun, Chitwan, East Nawalparasi and West Nawalparasi.

Cause still being examined

Officials said a landslide may have blocked a tributary before the stored water was suddenly released. Nepal’s hydrology officials described this as a preliminary assessment; the exact cause and full extent of the damage were still being established.

Update: five missing and 49 rescued

Follow-up reports from Reuters and the Associated Press said five people remained missing and 49 had been rescued after a landslide temporarily blocked the river and the resulting flood moved downstream. Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority urged residents in downstream areas to move to safer ground. The figure of 49 supersedes the preliminary rescue counts stated above. No death has been confirmed.