About 20 Chinese rescue workers searched through deep mud and debris on Sunday for hundreds of people still missing after a tsunami-like mudslide destroyed a major border crossing between China and Nepal.
The workers used excavators, shovels and ground-penetrating radar detectors as they searched the Gyirong border crossing in China’s Tibet region, where the disaster left extensive destruction after a glacier collapsed on the Nepal side of the border on August 26.
News agencies visited the border crossing during a trip organised by China’s foreign ministry for foreign media.
The five-story Chinese customs building that once stood at the border was completely gone, according to video and photographs from the site. Only part of a nearby water-tower installation remained visible.
A Chinese flag had been placed where the border gate, which stood nearly 20 meters high, once stood.
Behind hazard signs reading “Danger Area Pass Quickly”, rescue and recovery workers divided into three groups and used shovels to dig through the debris Sunday afternoon, while several red excavators stood nearby.
COMPLICATED OPERATION
Officials told Reuters that rescue teams had divided the search area into seven zones. Searches had been completed in four, leaving three still to be examined.
The mudslide has killed more than 1,300 people on both sides of the border, while more than 5,000 remain missing. In Nepal, emergency crews rescued a Chinese worker Saturday who had been trapped in a tunnel connected to a hydropower station.
On the Chinese side, 31 people had been confirmed dead, and 531 remained missing as of Friday, according to Chinese officials. Among those still unaccounted for are 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries.
The search has been complicated by the area’s high altitude, unstable ground, poor weather and deep mud. Gyirong County has an average elevation of more than 4,000 meters, although the border crossing itself is at about 1,800 meters.
The only road into Gyirong was restored Wednesday morning, enabling China to bring heavy equipment into the area for recovery operations and eventual reconstruction.
Chinese state media has shown workers restoring electricity by installing temporary poles to reconnect the area to the power grid.
HINDU PILGRIMAGE ROUTE
Gyirong has become the main crossing for trade and travel between Nepal and Tibet over the past decade, after a 2015 earthquake badly damaged another crossing farther east.
The border port was also closed from July last year until January following an earlier glacial flood.
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The crossing has served as an important route for Chinese goods entering Nepal, including electric vehicles, and in recent years has also been used by thousands of Hindu pilgrims travelling through Nepal toward Mount Kailash in Tibet.
Mount Kailash is revered by Hindus and Buddhists. Hindus regard the high-altitude site as the eternal home of Lord Shiva and his wife, Parvati.
Chinese diplomats in Beijing have said many of the foreign nationals still missing in Tibet were pilgrims travelling with extended families in India. Forty-nine Indian citizens are among those reported missing.
