China-Nepal Border Flooding · Full chronicle and history

According to a program on the Luther Society, the King of Tibet issued a public announcement claiming that netizens were distorting China’s rescue work in Nepal and one-sidedly applying other countries’ cases to make “malicious comparisons,” and that such netizens would be punished. Several netizens have been detained.

On the tenth day after the disaster at the Gyirong Port border, Nepalese rescue forces successfully rescued Chinese worker Lu Haitao from a tunnel buried by a mudslide, demonstrating the scale and persistence of local rescue operations.

On September 5, 2026, a Chinese worker who had been trapped for 10 days in a tunnel at the Chushuri Hydropower Station amid flash floods on the Nepal-Tibet border was successfully rescued by Nepalese military rescue personnel and airlifted by helicopter for medical treatment.

Nepalese army, armed police and rescue personnel rescued two stranded engineers inside the tunnel of the Upper Chhuksikhola 3A hydropower plant; the two were subsequently taken to a hospital in Kathmandu.

Chinese official reports state that as of September 4, the disaster has left 31 people dead and 531 missing, with a total of 987 personal belongings recovered at the scene.

The PLA and the Armed Police set up food service points about 2.5 kilometers from the port, erecting stoves and livestreaming the cooking.

Surviving workers at a Nepali hydropower project said that before the flood arrived, workers noticed something abnormal and demanded to evacuate the tunnel, but were stopped by the Chinese supervisor. The supervisor said they should go out first to check, then fled on his own and never returned, leaving a large number of workers trapped in the tunnel.

On September 2, 2026, surviving workers at Nepal's Trishuli 3A hydropower station told the media that before the flash flood arrived on August 26, workers had requested evacuation, but the Chinese national in charge ordered them to stay and keep working while he left first, leaving multiple workers trapped in the tunnel.

According to data released by the Chinese Communist Party, on September 2 the roads leading to the disaster area were all repaired and cleared; a total of 7 teams and more than 2,500 personnel, 500 vehicle sorties of search and rescue vehicles, and more than 9,000 sets of search and rescue equipment were deployed in the relief effort, with drones air-dropping 5.43 tons of supplies, of which the People's Liberation Army and the People's Armed Police cumulatively deployed 500 person-times and 4 helicopter sorties.

Nepal's immigration department found in electronic records that on the day of the flood, 89 people departed for Tibet and 4 were registered as entering Nepal; the last transaction occurred at 8:35:03.

Floods and mudslides occurred in the border area between Nepal and Tibet, with rescue workers continuing search and rescue operations and providing assistance; Water Mission dispatched a five-person team to Nepal to help restore safe drinking water supplies.

During the critical first ten days of rescue work after the mudslide disaster at Gyirong Port, the Chinese Communist Party did not allow any international media to enter the disaster area to inspect and report; only afterward did a special office under the State Council organize and guide journalists and provide documents for their coverage.

China's officially published casualty figures for the Gyirong mudslide show 16 dead and 546 missing, including 261 foreign nationals.

China's professional rescue team arrived at the core area of the Jilong port more than 48 hours after the disaster occurred; officials subsequently said no more survivors had been found.

The Nepalese military reported that it has deployed more than 8,300 personnel in total, rescued 2,697 people and evacuated over 10,000; among them, 2,497 were airlifted by helicopter, including 72 Chinese nationals.

Real Madrid held a minute of silence on the pitch to mourn the victims of the flood on the "Nepal and Tibet border," a phrasing that subsequently sparked controversy on the Chinese internet.

Nepal has reported that floods at the Gyirong border crossing have killed 626 people and left 2,426 missing, with 14,829 military, armed police and police security personnel participating in search and rescue operations.

Chinese authorities released disaster figures for the Tibetan side, saying 7 people were killed, 554 were missing, and 2 others were rescued.

On August 29, 2026, Nepalese authorities continued to release detailed lists of the dead and missing in cross-border flash floods as well as their hospital destinations, prompting public comparison and pointing out that, to date, the disaster at Tibet's Gyirong port has only reported total casualties and has not yet made public a specific list of individuals.

The day after the debris flow, the Nepalese military deployed helicopters and about 2000 personnel for rescue, evacuating 449 people by helicopter that day.

About 26 hours after the disaster, two Chinese rescue helicopters arrived in the affected area; the Western Theater Command, the Tibet Military Region and the armed police dispatched a total of about 500 personnel, and drones were used to carry out disaster-relief-related work.

Nepal has confirmed that the death toll from the landslide disaster has risen to 95, with another 403 people missing, including 341 foreign citizens.

On the morning of August 26, a flash flood and mudslide originating in northern Nepal struck the China-Nepal border, washing away a dam under construction near Gyirong Port. Chinese authorities reported that evening that the disaster in Gyirong County had left 3 dead and 265 missing. China launched a national level II disaster relief response, and Tibet launched a level I response.

After the disaster, social media circulated claims that China's building of border "moderately prosperous villages" (xiaokang villages) in high Himalayan regions and mountain-cutting and slope-slicing projects near Gyirong damaged the ecology, triggered an avalanche and caused flash floods. An account focusing on investigative reporting in Nepal, Nepal Correspondence, called this a "deliberate ecological disaster"; there is no solid evidence to confirm it. Meanwhile, disaster videos within China were quickly deleted.

Nepali police published information about missing persons on their website and provided a page for families of the victims to claim bodies; the program said the relevant website cannot be accessed inside China.