Hundreds of rescue personnel and heavy machinery were deployed in Gyirong.
On Wednesday, China mobilized hundreds of personnel and heavy machinery for rescue efforts after flooding struck the Tibetan county of Gyirong, which borders Nepal.
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The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced an emergency allocation of about US$14 million to support the recovery of infrastructure and basic services in the affected areas.
Chinese authorities activated a second-level national disaster response and deployed 249 members of firefighting rescue teams, as well as 325 personnel from specialized state-owned engineering and construction companies, accompanied by machinery to clear roads and facilitate operations.
Images broadcast by CCTV showed excavators and other vehicles working on roads covered by a layer of mud and rocks that reached approximately 1.5 meters in thickness in some areas.
Rescue efforts are also taking place under adverse weather conditions, with light rain in the area and forecasts calling for precipitation to continue over the next two days, while minimum temperatures could fall below 10 degrees Celsius.
A massive mudslide struck Gyirong Port on the China-Nepal border, with CCTV footage showing a wall of debris slamming through the crossing in seconds, tossing vehicles and buses.
Nepal reports at least 8-16 dead with hundreds of travelers listed as missing, including 291… pic.twitter.com/ZXfDIUaGsC
— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 26, 2026
Gyirong, located in the southwestern part of the Tibetan prefecture of Shigatse, has about 18,000 residents and sits at an average elevation of more than 4,000 meters.
In the absence of an official Chinese death toll, Xinhua news agency had reported “multiple casualties and missing people” after a flow of mud and rocks reached the Gyirong area.
The area is located in a border region of Tibet where travel by foreign nationals is generally subject to restrictions and specific permits and must be arranged through authorized agencies, although this does not rule out the possibility that foreign tourists could be among those affected.
On the Nepali side, authorities recorded at least 16 deaths and 384 missing travelers in Rasuwa district. The Nepalese government preliminarily attributed the flooding to a magnitude 4.4 earthquake that allegedly triggered a major landslide and blocked the Bhote Koshi River, after which the accumulated water was released.
teleSUR/ JF
Source: EFE
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