The United Nations has launched a major humanitarian response, warning that needs on the ground will be enormous. A spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general said World Health Organization staff are already deployed with enough medical supplies for roughly 10,000 people over three months, along with tents and logistical support. The World Food Programme and UNICEF are also sending personnel and supply trucks.
Among the missing are 127 Nepali citizens and hundreds of foreign nationals, according to Nepali authorities: 178 tourists from India, 65 Americans, 35 Australians and 33 Britons.
The scale of destruction stems largely from geography, said Polish mountaineer and rescuer Piotr Krzyżowski, who has visited Nepal twice this year and climbed 11 peaks above 8,000 meters. Most Nepali towns sit along riverbanks in narrow mountain valleys — terrain that channeled the flood's force directly into populated areas and cut off roads that also follow the rivers.
"This force of nature struck with enormous power the houses built close to these rivers, and the roads that run along them", Krzyżowski told Polish Radio, adding that helicopters are now the only way to reach many survivors.
He described the flood's origin as a chain reaction high in the mountains: ice, snow and rock broke loose from a slope, slammed into a valley below, and then "simply followed its natural, gravitational course" toward the towns downstream.
Rescue crews are using helicopters both to search for survivors and to drop tents, food and other emergency supplies into areas cut off by the disaster.
Krzyżowski said the tragedy also reflects a harder truth about settlement in the region. "These people simply have nowhere else to live, or they live in the only places available for settlement", he said, noting that avoiding such disasters is difficult when housing options are so limited.
The flooding surpasses anything Nepal has seen since April 2015, when a major earthquake killed approximately 9,000 people.
(jh)
Source: Polish Radio