Nepal rescuers search for missing people as floods kill more than 170

Emergency workers search for survivors as floods devastate large areas

Nepal's Armed Police Force rescues stranded people using a zipline rescue method from a flooded river in Lalitpur, Nepal, on September 28, 2024. At least 32 people die in Kathmandu Valley alone within 24 hours on September 28, 2024. (Photo by Subaas Shrestha/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Streets in Kathmandu are slick with mud as floodwater recedes from a neighbourhood that was inundated by the overflowing Bagmati River following heavy rains. Reuters

A rescue team conducts a search after passenger buses were buried in a landslide at Jhyaple Khola in the Dhading District of Nepal. EPA

Grief at Jhyaple Khola in the Dhading District of Nepal as relatives and neighbours gather to identify the bodies of passengers after buses were buried in a landslide. EPA

Grief at Jhyaple Khola in the Dhading District of Nepal as relatives and neighbours gather to identify the bodies of victims after passenger buses were buried in a landslide. EPA

Relatives and neighbours visit the site at at Jhyaple Khola in Dhading District, where bus travellers died in a landslide. EPA

Visitors cross the landslide site after passenger buses were buried in a landslide at Jhyaple Khola in Nepal. EPA

Emergency workers used zip lines and rafts in Nepal on Monday to search for people buried under mud after more than 170 people were killed as floods and landslides ravaged the country at the weekend.

Large parts of the Himalayan nation were inundated for days as torrential rain on Friday caused flash floods and landslides. The capital Kathmandu was hit hardest by flooding and remained cut off on Sunday as three motorways were blocked by landslides, while hundreds of homes and power lines were buried in mud across several neighbouring districts.

Nepal’s government on Sunday said at least 172 people were killed, 42 were missing and more than 100 were injured. It added that more than 4,000 people had been rescued, with helicopters, motorboats and rafts used to bring those stranded to safety on Monday as the weather began to improve.

Nepal Armed Police Forces used zip lines to traverse a flooded river in Lalitpur, south of Kathmandu. In other neighbourhoods, rescuers used rafts in flooded areas and cleared mud with their bare hands and shovels. Bulldozers were being used to clear nearly two dozen sections of major motorways leading into Kathmandu that had been blocked by debris.

“All security agencies have been mobilised for search and rescue operations and will continue high priority,” Nepalese authorities said on Sunday. The government also announced the closure of schools and colleges across the country for the next three days.

Deadly floods and landslides are common across South Asia during the monsoon season from June to September, but experts say climate change is worsening them.

Entire neighbourhoods in Kathmandu were inundated after the heaviest rains in more than two decades, with the capital temporarily cut off from the rest of Nepal after landslides blocked motorways.

At least 35 people were buried alive when a landslide engulfed vehicles on a motorway south of Kathmandu, Nepal Police spokesman Dan Bahadur Karki told AFP.

"Our focus is on search and rescue, including people who have been stranded on highways," Home Ministry spokesman Rishi Ram Tiwari told AFP.

Nepal's weather bureau said preliminary data from stations in 14 districts measured record-breaking rain in the 24 hours to Saturday morning.

A monitoring station at the Kathmandu airport recorded about 240mm of rain, the highest figure since 2002.

The summer monsoon from July to September brings South Asia 70 to 80 per cent of its annual rain and is vital for agriculture and food production in a region home to about two billion people.

But monsoon rains also bring widespread death and destruction in the form of floods and landslides.

Experts say climate change has worsened their frequency and intensity. More than 300 people have died in Nepal in rain-related disasters this year.

“I’ve never before seen flooding on this scale in Kathmandu,” said Arun Bhakta Shrestha, the environmental risks expert at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Lalitpur, in Nepal.