Nepal-Tibet floods: death toll rises to 626 and number missing climbs to nearly 3,000 – latest updates

Rescue workers and military personnel have been working around the clock since Wednesday’s disaster

• ‘The flood took everything I have’: survivors grieve for relatives and homes swept away in Nepal

• Chinese rescuers find ‘nothing but ruins’ at border crossing as Nepal seeks help to ID and store the dead

The Guardian’s south Asia correspondent Hannah Ellis-Petersen and journalist Gaurav Pokharel report from the Nepalese town of Bidur, where rescue efforts are being coordinated. They spoke to survivors mourning loved ones and confronting the loss of their homes and livelihoods after devastating floods swept through their communities.

Among those caught in the floods was Sangke Dolma Tamang, who described the moment she watched her husband being swept away and returned to find her home and village destroyed:

Sangke Dolma Tamang, 61, had been cheerily cooking snacks in her village of Mailung in the Rasuwa district when the floods came without warning. The whole family ran uphill for safety, but as she grabbed for her husband, he slipped from her grip and was washed into the dark, fast-moving waters.

“Others tried to pull him to safety, but the flood swept him away,” she said, tears rolling down her weathered cheeks. There was, she said, nothing left of her village now. She had spent a night sheltering on higher ground, until an army helicopter arrived and brought to her safety at the barracks. Her son too was missing since the disaster, and she waited anxiously for any news.

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Source: The Guardian World