Xi Orders All-Out Rescue After Tibet Mudslide Disaster
President Xi Jinping has issued urgent instructions demanding all-out search and rescue efforts after a catastrophic mudslide struck Gyirong County in Tibet’s Shigatse prefecture on Wednesday, leaving at least 558 people missing on the Chinese side of the border and causing widespread devastation in neighboring Nepal. The disaster, triggered by an ice avalanche on the Nepal-China border, has killed at least 162 people in Nepal and left hundreds more unaccounted for, according to Xinhua.
The Disaster
The mudslide struck on the morning of August 26, when a massive wall of water and debris swept through the Gyirong Port area, a key border crossing between China and Nepal in the Himalayas. Preliminary assessments indicate that an ice avalanche blocked the Lhende tributary of the Bhotekoshi river, forming a debris lake that subsequently burst, unleashing a torrent of water, ice, and sediment downstream.
As of Thursday morning, Chinese authorities reported 2 people rescued, 3 confirmed dead, and 558 missing on the Chinese side, including 260 foreign nationals, according to CCTV. The mudslide completely destroyed the Miteri Bridge connecting China and Nepal, along with the Gyirong Port joint inspection building, burying commercial warehouses and shops around the port. Roads, communications, and electricity were disrupted across the affected area.
Xi’s Directives
President Xi, who also serves as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, issued his instructions immediately after the disaster, emphasizing that “the urgent priority is to make every effort to search for and rescue missing persons, transfer and resettle threatened residents, and promptly treat the injured to minimize casualties.” He stressed the need to “strengthen monitoring and early warning, emphasize scientific rescue, and prevent secondary disasters.”
Xi further directed that all regions and relevant departments “adhere to extreme and bottom-line thinking, implement flood and typhoon prevention measures, strengthen risk inspection and rectification, resolutely prevent major disasters, and ensure the safety of people’s lives and property,” as reported by the Chinese government website.
Premier Li Qiang also issued directives calling for verification of the number of missing and affected people, organization of rescue efforts, and coordination with relevant countries through the Foreign Ministry. Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing was dispatched to lead on-site rescue coordination.
Devastation in Nepal
The flood wreaked havoc across three districts in Nepal, with the settlement of Timure near the border being among the hardest hit. Rajendra Dhungana, chief customs officer in Rasuwa, described the terrifying scene to the Kathmandu Post: “It was the flood, rising like a wave nearly 100 metres high and sweeping through the market. Within moments, the market was gone.”
More than 300 vehicles and trucks waiting at the customs checkpoint were washed away. The flood destroyed nine hydropower projects, 19 motorable bridges, and 40 kilometers of highway. Security officials and disaster experts say the flood may rank among the deadliest in Nepal’s modern history, potentially surpassing the 1993 floods that killed 1,400 people.
Cause and Warning System Failure
Officials at Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology said preliminary satellite imagery received from Chinese authorities showed that debris had blocked the river about 20 kilometers upstream of the Miteri Bridge, forming a temporary lake that subsequently burst. Binod Parajuli, chief of the department’s Flood Forecasting Division, told the Kathmandu Post that “an icefall and landslide can be seen. An ice and debris lake formed and then burst. A dam was formed.”
A magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck Tibetan territory on the morning of the disaster, about 47 kilometers north of Gosainkunda, possibly contributing to the avalanche. Rijan Bhakta Kayastha, a climate researcher and professor at Kathmandu University, noted that “there is information that an ice avalanche from the Nepal side blocked the Lhende river. An earthquake also occurred on the Tibetan side around the same time.”
The disaster exposed critical gaps in early warning systems. Nepal’s automatic flood-monitoring stations in the upper reaches of the Bhotekoshi river were swept away before they could transmit warnings. “None of the stations was able to send us an alert,” Parajuli admitted. The Flood Forecasting Division received information shortly before 9 AM and sent warnings within four minutes, but by then the flood had already reached large parts of Rasuwa. “We failed in Rasuwa,” Parajuli said. “But we sent warnings to Nuwakot and downstream areas, and possibly several hundred people were able to save their lives.”
Emergency Response and Relief
The National Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Relief Committee and the Ministry of Emergency Management activated a National Level II disaster relief emergency response, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management. The Tibet Autonomous Region activated Level I natural disaster emergency response.
The Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Emergency Management allocated 120 million yuan in central disaster relief funds, as reported by China Daily. The National Development and Reform Commission allocated an additional 100 million yuan for post-disaster recovery, while Shigatse city allocated 10 million yuan and dispatched more than 15,000 relief items, according to CCTV.
The China Rescue Team, comprising 111 firefighters from Beijing and Sichuan, arrived at Dingri Airport on Thursday morning and was heading to the disaster area, as Xinhua reported. National comprehensive fire rescue teams dispatched 113 vehicles and 601 personnel, while the PLA Tibet Military District and Armed Police Tibet Corps also deployed forces. The Red Cross Society of China dispatched a work team and emergency relief supplies including tents, family kits, and hygiene packages, as CCTV reported.
Analysis: A Wake-Up Call for Transboundary Disaster Cooperation
The disaster has raised fundamental questions about disaster preparedness in the Himalayan region, where climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of glacial lake outburst floods and ice avalanches. Nepal and China signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in disaster risk reduction and emergency response in 2019, but Wednesday’s catastrophe exposed the gap between having an agreement on paper and having an effective mechanism to implement it.
Anil Pokhrel, former executive chief of Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, warned that the problem is systemic. “The government needs to think about whether it will remain limited to relief and rescue after a disaster occurs, or work to prevent such disasters from causing loss of life in the first place.” He added that unless Nepal’s Foreign Ministry coordinates with relevant Chinese authorities to create a system through which early warnings reach disaster management authorities, “this problem will continue.”
Following the disaster, officials from Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology and the China Meteorological Administration held a virtual meeting, and China agreed to inform Nepal as soon as water flows begin to rise on its side of the border. Parajuli emphasized that vulnerable Himalayan areas need real-time sensors, cameras, and monitoring systems capable of detecting such events. “The first thing is to detect an event through sensors and share that information across borders,” he said. “If we can install sensors extensively in the mountains and receive information as soon as an event occurs, we can give people downstream enough time to move to safety.”
What’s Next
As rescue operations continue on both sides of the border, the full scale of the disaster is still emerging. The international dimension of the tragedy is significant—tourists from India, the UK, the US, Malaysia, South Africa, and other nations are among the missing, and eight South Korean workers at hydropower projects in Nepal were also reported unaccounted for. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry has established a working group and dispatched a rapid response team.
This disaster follows a similar flood that struck the Bhotekoshi river on July 8, 2025, which killed at least 11 people and washed away the Miteri Bridge. The recurrence of such catastrophic events in the same region within just over a year underscores the urgent need for robust transboundary early warning systems, enhanced monitoring infrastructure, and meaningful implementation of existing cooperation agreements between Nepal and China. The coming days will be critical for rescue efforts, but the longer-term challenge of preventing such disasters from claiming lives remains unresolved.