Nepal adds nearly 1,000 missing and raises the toll to 6,150 after the Himalayan tsunami

Nepal added one thousand people to its list of missing persons following the devastating floods that struck the north and center of the country on August 26, bringing the total number of people whose whereabouts are unknown to 6,150, authorities confirmed this Thursday.

The spokesperson for the Nepalese National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA), Shanti Mahat, explained to EFE that the list was updated after authorities received more detailed information from villages in the areas affected by the disaster, as search and rescue operations continue.

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"The NDRRMA does not yet have all the data on the missing persons. The list could continue to grow, as rescue teams have now reached almost every corner of the districts affected by the disaster to collect data on the missing," Mahat told EFE.

The spokesperson added that the figure could also decrease once the identity of unidentified bodies recovered after the disaster is established through DNA testing, as some could correspond to people currently listed as missing.

In fact, the latest NDRRMA report indicates that 105 names were removed from the list of missing persons following the identification of their bodies. Authorities have collected nearly 1,300 DNA samples from the bodies and nearly 1,900 from relatives.

Nepal has recovered 1,403 bodies so far following the floods, although more than 520 of the records correspond to partial remains, thus making it difficult to consolidate the total number of fatalities.

The so-called "Himalayan tsunami," one of the worst natural disasters in years in Nepal, occurred on the morning of August 26 after the detachment of a two-square-kilometer mass of glacier and rock from the Langtang Lirung mountain in the Nepalese Himalayas, at an altitude of 5,200 meters.

The resulting flood wiped out thousands of homes and businesses, in addition to damaging dozens of hydroelectric projects and other infrastructure. Nepal estimates that rebuilding the country will cost more than $4.7 billion.

In the neighboring Chinese region of Tibet, also hit hard by the mud and rock avalanche on August 26, the latest report released by authorities raises the death toll to 43, while 519 people remain missing. EFE