28.08.2026 09:41
Following the flood and landslide disaster in which hundreds of people went missing on the Nepal-China border, a new emergency has been declared in the region. It was announced that a natural dam formed when a landslide on the Tibetan side blocked a river has collapsed, and a massive body of water is rapidly moving toward Nepal. While Nepal police urged citizens to immediately move to high and safe areas, search and rescue operations carried out by helicopters were also halted.
The natural dam formed when a massive landslide in Tibet blocked a riverbed has collapsed. As millions of cubic meters of water rapidly surge toward the Nepalese border, a red alert has been issued in the region, and all ongoing search and rescue operations have been urgently suspended.
EVACUATION PROCESS AND SUSPENDED OPERATIONS
Before the wounds of the flood and landslide disaster that caused hundreds of people to go missing on the Nepal-China border on August 26 could be healed, a second crisis erupted. Nepalese police forces have made an urgent call for residents living in the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli river basins to immediately evacuate to higher ground. On the instructions of Rasuwa district crisis management official Deep Shamsher Jabra, rescue teams and security forces who had been searching for the missing for days in the field have ended their helicopter-supported operations and withdrawn to safe areas.
THE "TICKING TIME BOMB" EXPLODED EARLIER THAN EXPECTED
The natural lake, which experts had been warning about for days and describing as a ticking time bomb, could not withstand the pressure from the incessant rainfall in the region. The barrier lake formed in Jilong, in Tibet's Shigatse region, had reached 150 meters in length and approximately 50 meters in depth, accumulating a massive water volume of between 1.5 and 2 million cubic meters. The fact that the barrier holding back the water was composed of loose rock, soil, and sediment rather than a solid concrete-like structure paved the way for the rapid collapse of the system. China's Ministry of Water Resources had calculated that with ongoing rainfall, an additional water inflow of about 3 million cubic meters—enough to fill 1,200 Olympic swimming pools—would occur and had set September 1 as the critical threshold, but the natural dam collapsed before the expected date.
TOLL FROM THE AUGUST 26 CATASTROPHE RISES
The chain of disasters in the region began on August 26, when glaciers and rocks breaking off the Himalayas traveled along a 20-kilometer valley at speeds reaching 180 kilometers per hour. The massive debris flow filling the valley led to the formation of natural dams, while the death toll from the flood disaster had risen to 469 so far.