Families’ desperate wait for news of loved ones after devastating Nepal flash flood

One of the 41 Australian travellers reported missing after flash floods devastated the Nepal-China border has made contact with her relieved parents, as the total number of missing people nears 2000 and rescue efforts in the area swung back into action after fears of another major flood dissipated.

Cara Severino, 26, called her parents on Friday morning to confirm she was alive and well, but was stranded along the Langtang Trek.

Her parents, Debbie and Frank Severino, said their daughter was hiking the trek with a group, and they lost touch with her because of the floods. But she had subsequently made contact, much to their relief.

“We praise God that she has been able to make this brief contact with us. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the families awaiting news,” they said.

Nepal’s disaster management authority on Friday night (Saturday morning AEST) said the death toll had risen to 579, although that number could rise dramatically. The agency said the number of people reported missing was 1924, as more locals were added to the tally, and included 517 foreign tourists.

Among them is Sumi Adhikari, who went missing near the Kerung border crossing between China and Nepal.

“Upon speaking with her husband, we learnt that Sumi went missing while returning from the Mount Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage,” Non-Resident Nepali Association (NRNA) NSW state co-ordinator Usha Kiran Bariya said.

Earlier, residents in Nepal’s mountainous Rasuwa district, on the border with China’s Tibet, were forced to rush up hillsides to escape a possible surge in the river level as a lake formed by debris from Wednesday’s glacier collapse began to overflow, according to witnesses.

The prospect of the lake bursting prompted all Chinese rescue personnel to withdraw to a safe area, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Authorities in Nepal stopped helicopter rescue operations for 90 minutes.

The disruption was short-lived after Chinese state media said the barrier lake had stopped overflowing, according to the BBC.

CCTV said rescue operations on the Tibet side were now “continuing as normal” after water levels of the barrier lake “dropped slightly”, the BBC reported.

The lake’s reservoir has topped 2.5 million cubic metres of water, up from the estimated 1.5 to 2 million cubic metres that an eight-member Chinese engineering team sent to monitor the site recorded a day ago.

The formation ​of the lake had been captured in aerial footage by a Chinese rescue team, showing ⁠masses of brown water accumulating in a basin with no visible outlet.

Nepalese police said on Friday afternoon: “Information has been received that the water dam on the Tibetan side has burst again. Therefore, all security personnel, rescue workers involved in rescue and relief operations, and the general public, are requested to remain immediately alert and move to safe locations or notify others.”