Nepal Holds Day of Mourning for 1,380 Flood Dead as 5,500 Remain Missing
Updated
Updated · Al Jazeera English · Sep 7
Nepal Holds Day of Mourning for 1,380 Flood Dead as 5,500 Remain Missing
3 articles · Updated · Al Jazeera English · Sep 7
Summary
Flags flew at half-mast in Nepal and at missions abroad on Monday as the country marked a national day of mourning on the 13th day after floods killed at least 1,380 people.
August 26 flooding began when a glacier break sent mud and rock into a river on the Nepal-Tibet border, leaving more than 5,500 people missing.
Searches are still centered on 12 hydropower projects, where about 900 workers are missing and roughly 500 are believed trapped in tunnels; teams from India, China, South Korea and the US are involved.
Four survivors were pulled out in recent days, including a Chinese national rescued from a hydropower tunnel on Saturday, but families in Kathmandu protested what they called slow rescue efforts.
President Ram Chandra Paudel is touring the disaster zone Monday as Nepal balances Hindu mourning rituals with a still-unfinished search for survivors.
Could the sudden destruction of Nepal's power grid force a radical national shift from hydropower to solar energy?
Did a push for renewable energy inadvertently trap hundreds of workers inside climate-vulnerable Himalayan tunnels?
How did an entire flood-warning network fail to detect the catastrophic glacier collapse before it struck?
Catastrophe in the Himalayas: The 2026 Langtang Glacial Collapse, Floods, and Nepal’s Struggle to Recover from Over 1,200 Deaths and 5,600 Missing
Overview
Unseasonably warm temperatures and rapid snowmelt in the Langtang valley triggered a massive glacier collapse on August 26, 2026. The falling ice and rock caused a powerful avalanche, which crashed into the Lhende Khola, temporarily dammed the river, and then unleashed a catastrophic flash flood. This flood surged nearly 100 kilometers downstream, destroying riverbanks, hydropower plants, and critical infrastructure, while sweeping away monitoring stations and cutting off remote villages. The disaster left hundreds dead or missing, thousands homeless, and forced Nepal to reverse its initial refusal of foreign aid as the scale of destruction and urgent humanitarian needs became clear.