KATHMANDU — Nepali police on Friday directed emergency teams to evacuate flood-ravaged valleys along the border with China after reports indicated a debris dam had burst upstream in Tibet, threatening additional water flows into already devastated areas.
The order complicates an ongoing search operation for survivors of deadly flash floods that struck Wednesday. Emergency teams have recovered 472 bodies from disaster zones in Nepal and Tibet.
Witnesses described the initial catastrophe as a tsunami-like wall of water and mud that destroyed homes, swamped roads and swept away bridges in minutes. More than 1,400 people remain missing across the affected regions, according to officials.
Rescuers in both countries were already working to locate the stranded and missing. The reported debris dam burst, following a glacial collapse that contributed to the initial flooding, forced authorities to prioritize the safety of search teams by moving them to higher ground.
