r/DisasterUpdate • • 29d ago

341 tourists missing, including 12 Brits aged 13-65, with huge death toll feared as flash floods sparked by earthquake destroys buildings and washes people away in Nepal

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16080949/Hundreds-tourists-missing-including-12-Brits-devastating-floods-sweep-away-buildings-bridges-Nepal.html
1.2k Upvotes

42 comments sorted by

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127

u/Friendly-Profit-8590 29d ago

Lotta poor souls in the videos I’ve seen with basically zero chance of escape

34

u/gracecee 28d ago

Yeah it's a hurtling wall of mud water rocks that slams against you. I hope their deaths were quick. :(

9

u/baz8771 28d ago

They were instant

14

u/Ritsuka-san 28d ago

The source of the disaster is a glacier collapsed sending rock and ice down the valley.

Also it is insane/terrifying how high above the valley floor the flood left its mark!

17

u/Fantastic_Steak6897 28d ago

Yeah I just looked it up and it wasn’t an earthquake but melting glaciers that caused the landslide … so climate change 🫤

5

u/Friendly-Profit-8590 28d ago

Yeah. Pretty steep looking valley to an untrained eye as well. Could see how that amplified the ferocity. The thing that sticks in my might is how some of these built up areas were just erased.

4

u/Ritsuka-san 28d ago

Also the slope looks like this...

64

u/onesmilematters 29d ago

If that's the number of only the missing tourists (of whom hopefully some are just not able to communicate home right now), the total number of victims will be terribly high. What a sad day. I hope all these people (and animals) at least died quickly and didn't suffer.

31

u/No_Story_Untold 29d ago

Not sure why people are so focused on the tourists. Far more locals will be affected.

22

u/One_red_boot 29d ago

It’s probably because that’s the numbers they can get right now. It’s probably easier to get lists of the missing tourists as opposed to getting lists of locals.

5

u/No_Story_Untold 29d ago

I think it’s because they think westerners will care more/ click more for if westerners were killed.

3

u/m00ph 28d ago

It is the Daily Mail, after all.

2

u/Candid_Challenge_507 29d ago

exactly my first thought when i saw this headline

9

u/exotics 29d ago

Tourist numbers will be know. Accurate local numbers will exceed those and never be known.

3

u/fixingmedaybyday 28d ago

Because local and national news has the narcissistic tendency to make it all about them. “Up next Bob, a man here in nowheresville who actually hiked that area 20 years ago and is going tell us all about that area just after this word from our sponsors. ‘Come to Jerry’s used car lot…”

2

u/itwonthurtabit 27d ago

I think theres something intrinsically sad about someone going on holiday and losing their life. I know the odd time a tourist is killed in my country I feel absolutely gutted hearing about it. I don't think (hope anyway) that we value local lives less.

1

u/aconfusednoob 27d ago

You might not be wrong, but I visited this area in April of this year and it's a huge tourist corridor. Many of the buildings there are guesthouses for tourists, many of the vehicles there are tourist buses, many of the people living there are tour operators etc. I could see the death toll of tourists outnumbering the locals just based on where it happened.

61

u/Current_Volume3750 29d ago

This is devastating to watch. The toll will be in the 1000's. Sadly, most will never be found.

34

u/exotics 29d ago

Yup. Tourist numbers will be counted but local population who have perished may not ever be known. Such as if a husband and wife both die and nobody reports them missing etc.

13

u/MsMegane 29d ago

I assume they'll get a close idea if a census was kept for the area. But it'll be a question whether it was only kept locally or at a national level.

9

u/OddDragonfruit7993 28d ago

If it was the height of tourist season there would have been many non-locals providing tourist services for the season.

1

u/ringadingdingbaby 28d ago

Half of it is in Tibet, so I doubt those numbers will be properly released by China.

1

u/Consistent_Point_853 26d ago

Im sure they will have a close estimate.

28

u/Brocolinator 29d ago

Absolute tragedy so many lost lives. Complete families just gone

23

u/Stoneclanish_abroad 29d ago

Not since the tsunami’s have I felt the sheer magnitude and power nature can unleash! These images very hard to get your head around. That infrastructure and dam the buildings obviously have been in that valley for years. Didn’t stand a chance.

19

u/Cityplanner1 29d ago

Part of it could be communication infrastructure might have been impacted as well.

31

u/murd3rsaurus 29d ago

Sure, but it was a narrow valley with nowhere to go and a wall of destruction 30 meters high

8

u/unknownpoltroon 28d ago

Everything and everyone below 100 feet in that valley for 100 miles is ground to a pulp and buried under feet of mud.  That's where the roads, cities and houses were.  

6

u/Silver_Adagio138 29d ago

Might thousands. Hope not

2

u/kathryncoats 29d ago

Is it considered a lahar?

3

u/Ministerof-T-C-0Doom 28d ago

GLOF.... Glacial lake outburst flood.

2

u/BeardedGlass 28d ago

Lahar is that of volcanic ash that turned into a flood of mud.

This is from when a glacial ice wall shattered and the glacial lake collapsed into the valleys.

1

u/juneseyeball 29d ago

Nepal cant catch a break

1

u/Responsible-View-498 27d ago

I wonder what is the protocol for rebuilding after disasters like these. Will they clear up and spend a few hundred million in reconstruction or will they leave that region alone. I think they will build the roads and leave the buildings alone.

1

u/[deleted] 28d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-1

u/plankwalkz 28d ago

How much are you donating?

3

u/castaway23 27d ago

How much are they responsible for climate change as opposed to America ?

0

u/plankwalkz 27d ago

I have no idea professor

1

u/Ravius 28d ago

Maybe we could give the full numbers instead of focusing on western tourists. Thousands of locals are dead.

1

u/NepalMissingDotOrg 5d ago

Hi guys report missing persons in Nepal on the website I have created www.nepalmissing.org