Helena Humphrey
Reporting from Tennessee

I am at the Isha Foundation’s US headquarters in the green hills of McMinnville, Tennessee.

Bells marking the beginning and end of meditation practice can be heard.

It is a serene place, now grappling with a disaster thousands of miles away in the Himalayas.

As we’ve been reporting, 77 people taking part in one of the foundation’s spiritual pilgrimages, along with three volunteers, are among those missing in the region.

Leslie Crespi, a community liaison for the foundation who has made the pilgrimage herself, describes it as a spiritual high point in many peoples’ lives.

After seeing video footage of the devastation, she says hopes of finding survivors are fading.

People travelling in the Himalayas expect some weather-related challenges, she says, but nothing could have prepared them for something like this.

She has been sitting with the families of some of those missing and says they are shocked and devastated.

Many of those caught up in the disaster had spent time here on yoga and meditation retreats. "They were like family," she says, her voice breaking.

The Indian government says 290 of its citizens are "not contactable" following the floods in Nepal.

Nepal's tourism board previously said that 178 Indian tourists were missing - the figure provided by the Indian government also appears to include workers.

India's ministry of external affairs says that 84 have been rescued: 63 workers from the Trishuli-I hydropower project, and 21 from Tamil Nadu.

Drone footage from Reuters news agency shows excavators clearing mud in Nuwakot, Nepal, a day after the deadly flash floods.

The devastation is widespread, with some buildings partially destroyed.

As we've been reporting, the US Geological Survey says a glacial collapse sparked the disaster, with "catastrophic impacts" downstream of the Trishuli river.

We've mapped the worst-affected regions in a previous post.

The Rasuwa district is closest to the origin of the floods, while the neighbouring Nuwakot district has also been severely impacted.

One woman has just told BBC News how her uncle in Nuwakot received a phone call from someone up river, warning the family they had just 15 minutes to escape.

He was warned over the phone that "something is massively coming," says Dikshya Subedi.

The process of warning others was "very difficult", she says, with people struggling to believe the extent of the risk given it wasn't raining.

"In my family, every member is safe," she says, but adds that not everyone in the neighbourhood got away.

She says the house her husband grew up in has since disappeared.

Hsin-Yi Lo and Joshua Askew
BBC South East

A woman from Kent says she has been unable to contact her sister, who was near the Nepal-Tibet border when devastating flash flooding hit.

Tatajana Phillips tells the BBC her sister, Julija Jakovicka, was last known to be in the border area an hour before the natural disaster struck.

"Then there is no more news," she says. "We are really hoping that people hear us and try to find [my sister]".

Phillips says her sister, a mother of two living in Germany, was in the country for a yoga and meditation retreat with a group of tourists.

"We are terribly worried," adds Phillips's husband, Ben. "We just know where they were and that's really tough."

Read the full story here.

Nepal’s prime minister’s office says 350 people have been rescued from a tunnel near the Trishuli river.

Those rescued from the tunnel, which is part of a hydropower plant, were workers and local people, the update says.

The Nepali army is still working to rescue 100 more people inside, it adds.

Image source, PMO Nepal

Soutik Biswas
India correspondent

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

The devastation in Nepal also serves as a warning for India.

Nepal’s Himalayan rivers feed several major Indian river systems, including the Gandaki and Kosi, as well as the Bagmati, Kamla-Balan and others, before flowing into the densely populated plains of Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Bihar, India's most flood-prone state, is unusually exposed. Only about 35% of the land that supplies water - through rainfall, streams and smaller rivers - to major north Bihar rivers lies within the state and a lot of the rest is across the border in Nepal and Tibet, according to the government.

Wednesday's catastrophe - which is said to be a glacial collapse that sent a huge debris-filled surge downstream - shows the risk.

Floods don't simply carry water: they carry enormous sediment, raising river beds and threatening embankments. So what begins as a Himalayan disaster could become an Indian flood emergency.

Navin Singh Khadka
Global environment correspondent, BBC World Service

The glacial collapse that is said to have caused the devastating floods happened on the Nepali side of the Himalayan mountains, Nepal's officials have told the BBC.

Earlier some officials in Nepal had suggested that it may have happened in Tibet on the Chinese side. That had ignited criticism that there was no early warning from China.

Officials with Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Authority said their technical team has established that the collapse happened on a mountain called Langtang Lirung, which is on the Nepali side beside the Lhende river that serves as the border between Nepal and China.

They said following the collapse of the glacier, some of which may have melted while dropping, the Lhende river below was blocked by a temporary dam created by rocks and debris that came down from the mountain. And when the dam breached, the devastating flood hurtled down.

Officials with Nepal's department of meteorology and hydrology have confirmed that finding.

An analysis by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, a regional organisation that specialises in Himalayan hazards, also shows that the glacial collapse happened on the Nepali side, its officials told the BBC.

In the past, when floods from glacial lakes in Tibet caused damages in Nepal, Nepali authorities used to say there was no early warning from China.

Gabriela Pomeroy
Live reporter

South African businesswoman Bavika Ramjee was “really excited and thrilled” to go on her first Hindu pilgrimage with the tour group Kailash Journeys.

“It was life-long ambition,” her brother Bhavesh tells me from his home in East London, "as she is very spiritual and religious."

But since the tour group reached the border between Nepal and Tibet on the same day the floods hit, they’ve been completely out of contact.

Bhavesh says in a shaking voice: “We've been contacting the embassy, looking through lists of missing people, trying all avenues to get any information."

"It's been awful," he says.

Image source, Bhavesh Ramjee

Louise Hosie
BBC Scotland

A Nepalese man living in Aberdeen tells the BBC how he lost three close family members in the deadly flash floods that hit his home country on Wednesday.

Barun Lamichhane, 26, says his brother, uncle and cousin all died in the disaster - but that his mother, father and grandmother managed to escape.

Lamichhane says they managed to get away by "crawling like a baby" into the hillside.

"Luckily they are alive," he says, adding he "can't express" the pain he is feeling about those who have died.

Read more on this story here.

Image source, Reuters

The Nepalese Tourism Board says 667 people are missing following the flash floods close to the Nepal-Tibet border.

This includes 540 foreign nationals from 31 countries, as well as 127 Nepalese citizens, it adds in a post on social media.

There are 178 Indian nationals missing, the highest of any country, along with 65 from the US, 53 from Ukraine, 51 from Malaysia, 35 from Australia and 33 from the UK.

The tourism board also says 31 foreign nationals - from India, South Korea, the USA, Russia, Italy, Bulgaria and Switzerland - have been rescued from the affected areas.

In a previous update, Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said 910 people were missing and remained uncontactable following the floods.

Both organisations have been providing differing figures through separate updates.

Shawn Yuan
Senior reporter, Global China Unit

Image source, Reuters

Gyirong is the largest land border crossing between China and Nepal, and Nepal’s single biggest trading link with Tibet.

Trade has surged in recent years - in 2024 alone, $632m (£466m) worth of goods crossed the port, roughly 30% of total China-Nepal trade that year.

It’s also a flagship Belt and Road project, branded as China’s gateway to South Asia, and the main route for foreign tourists and pilgrims heading to Mount Kailash.

Gyirong sits in a region prone to natural disasters and has suffered damage in the past.

An earthquake in 2015 destroyed Tibet’s other main crossing, Zhangmu, prompting China to develop Gyirong as its replacement. It reopened as an international port in 2017 and later became Tibet’s first Border Economic Cooperation Zone.

Then, in July 2025, flash flooding - likely caused by a glacial lake outburst - washed out Gyirong’s bridge. The port fully reopened on New Year’s Day this year.

That same road and infrastructure has now failed again.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has once more called for stronger monitoring and early-warning systems, echoing near-identical instructions issued after the 2025 flood - a sign that whatever measures followed last time weren’t enough to withstand a repeat event just over a year later.

Enormous boulders swept along Trishuli River, videos showpublished at 18:40 BST

18:40 BST

By Benedict Garman, Sherie Ryder and Charlotte Green

Shocking footage shared on social media shows two enormous boulders being swept down the Trishuli River in Nepal, demonstrating the sheer power of the surging floodwater.

A video confirmed by BBC Verify shows a huge rock being pushed slowly past houses in a flooded valley, about 35 miles (56km) from where the flood began.

Image source, X

The second verified clip, filmed about 3 miles further downstream, features a second boulder being violently rolled by waves in the muddy water.

Image source, X

While there has been speculation on social media that the boulders are glacier debris, remnants of the original landslide which appears to have triggered the flash floods, we have not been able to confirm this.

But we have established they are two distinct rocks rather than the same one filmed at different places by checking other footage and satellite imagery - both of which show that the first boulder came to a halt in the river before reaching the location of the second video.

Freya Scott-Turner
Live reporter

On Wednesday morning, a huge surge of mud and water swept down from the Nepal-Tibet border, leaving destruction in its path. Since then, the number of dead and missing has climbed, while rescue and recovery efforts have been under way.

This is how the last 40 hours have played out:

Wednesday

08:37 local time in Nepal (02:52 GMT): A magnitude 5.2 seismic event occurs near the Nepal-Tibet border. This was initially thought to be an earthquake, but the US Geological Survey (USGS) has since said it was a glacial collapse.

The USGS says the flow of debris from the collapse led to "subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream".

Moments later: A wall of water and other material crashes downstream, taking buildings, roads and vehicles in its wake.

14:45: Authorities say 384 tourists are missing, including 291 foreign nationals. Nepalese authorities later confirm that 33 Britons are among those missing.

By 17:00: Nepalese police tells the BBC that at least 17 people have been killed.

22:45: The Nepalese prime minister's office says search and rescue operations will continue throughout the night, with civilian and military personnel mobilised.

Thursday

By 08:00 local time (00:00 GMT) in Tibet: China says three people were killed on the Tibetan side, while 558 others are missing.

Shortly after 07:15 (01:30 GMT) in Nepal: Nepalese police say they have recovered 162 bodies so far. This figure has continued to rise throughout the day - and currently stands at 389.

Mid-morning: The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader who lives in exile from Tibet, says he is praying "for all those who have lost their lives".

14:00 in Nepal: An update from authorities puts the number of missing people at more than 900, including more than 500 foreign nationals.

Tom Bateman
US State Department correspondent

The BBC understands that as of 08:00 ET (13:00 BST) the US government is aware of approximately 90 US nationals who may be affected by the floods.

The government is not aware of the deaths of any US citizens, but three US citizens have been safely rescued in Nepal.

The US State Department is providing $500,000 in emergency relief funds and has deployed a disaster response adviser to the region to support recovery efforts.

We can bring you some images from a major motorway in Kathmandu, Nepal, which has been halted by the floods.

Vehicles are stranded and congestion is building as the roads remain closed.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

The most recent update from Nepal police says that the number of injured and rescued people in the country now stands at 466, and it breaks it down by district.

• Rasuwa, the closest district to where the initial landslide occurred - 289
• Nuwakot - 90
• Dhading - 3
• Kathmandu - 84

We're getting different figures from various agencies in Nepal. Earlier, we heard from the country's prime minister that at least 573 people have been rescued today.

Laura Bicker
China correspondent

Rescue efforts in China are being led by the People’s Liberation Army, but state media said they face multiple challenges.The Air Force did manage to use a brief weather window to fly a drone over the area to try to find survivors and assess how safe it was for rescue teams to enter.

The border town of Gyirong is the main crossing for people and traffic heading between Nepal and China. Video footage appears to show a crushing wall of water crashing through buildings and washing away trucks and cars.

Thousands of pilgrims were making a journey along this route from Nepal towards a sacred mountain in Tibet. This is also one of the most controlled and politically sensitive regions of China.

Access to Tibet is restricted for foreigners. All the information we receive is from Chinese state media which is also carefully controlled.

Image source, AFP via Getty

The number of people killed in Nepal by flash flooding has risen to 389, according to Nepal police.

This is an update from the previous death toll of 359 given by authorities a few hours ago.

Image source, Balendra Shah

We've heard again from Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah, who has been visiting areas affected by the recent floods.

He says over 13,000 security personnel from the Nepali army, armed police force and national police have been mobilised to engage in search operations - with 69 flights rescuing 573 people across the day.

Temporary relief camps have been set up and free treatment is being provided to injured citizens, he adds.

Shah says the government's focus is on saving lives, searching for those who are missing, and providing relief to those affected.