Updated on: August 28, 2026 / 10:08 PM EDT
/ CBS/AP
Rescuers pulled out survivors caked in dark brown mud and helicopters lifted stranded people to safety Friday as Nepal and China raced to respond after catastrophic flash floods and landslides killed almost 600 people and left roughly 2,500 missing.
Nepali and Chinese authorities warned of further risk of flooding from a new lake that has formed upstream following Wednesday's disaster, telling people in the potentially affected areas to move to safer ground.
More than 3,700 people have been rescued in Nepal so far, but 1,924 people remain unaccounted for in the country, according to authorities. China's state media previously said 558 people were missing on the Chinese side.
Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said Friday that the confirmed death toll had risen to 579. Local Nepalese media said there could still be as many as 12,000 people unaccounted for, but that much higher figure was not confirmed by any officials. Hundreds of the missing are foreigners who were in the area to work, trek or make a pilgrimage to a sacred peak on the Tibet side of the border.
Helicopters had carried more than 3,000 people to safety in Kathmandu and other locations. On the Chinese side, there was little information about survivors, although the death toll rose to five Friday as state media showed evacuations of villages and leaders' efforts to direct relief efforts.
The Red Cross said Friday that some 90,000 people had likely been impacted by the flooding, which is believed to have been triggered by the collapse of a rocky ledge and the vast portion of a glacier it had supported.
The Nepal Police issued a fresh alert Friday after receiving information that a dam on the Tibetan side of the border was running over. Security personnel and rescue and relief workers were told to stay on high alert and immediately move to a safe location if necessary.
It was unclear if that concern was related to fears of flooding from an overflowing barrier lake that formed behind a dam formed by debris from the initial flash floods, high up on the Chinese side of the Himalayan mountains.
Nepal police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle said the rescue operation "hasn't stopped," but was continuing under high alert.
Although Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported Friday that the lake was more than 6 miles from Gyirong Port, the border crossing with Nepal that was decimated by a wall of mud and water on Wednesday morning, it said the risk of flooding was high. It said the lake was at an elevation of 9,680 feet, about 3,280 feet above Gyirong Port.
CCTV later said flood risks from the overflowing lake were deemed "manageable," Reuters reported.
Nepali army rescuers were working to help people trapped in a hydropower tunnel in Rasuwa, part of the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project.
In video from the scene, rescuers half-pulled, half-pushed a man covered in dark brown mud out of the tunnel. He was one of dozens who were likely trapped inside.
Army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet told The Associated Press the focus was on survivors.
