Hundreds missing after Nepal-Tibet flood kills at least 160

NUWAKOT, Nepal - A massive flood and mudslide disaster on the Nepal-Tibet border killed at least 160 people on Wednesday and left several hundred missing, many of them foreign tourists.

Aid workers said entire settlements had been "wiped out". Surveillance footage verified by AFP shows dozens of people running for their lives as a stories-tall surge of debris slammed into the Chinese side of a border area, tossing lorries and buses aside.

Chinese state media reported "major casualties" from a mudslide at a Tibet border hub, reporting three dead and another 265 people missing.

Nepali police said that they had recovered 157 bodies after "devastating floods", with officers "working to move families in flood-risk areas... to safer locations."

Rescuers waded through mud and sludge to look for survivors after floodwaters buried the lower floors of multi-storey buildings.

Some 403 tourists - 341 of them foreigners - were unaccounted for several hours after the disaster struck, according to Nepal's tourism ministry.

The missing foreigners included 142 Indians, and others from Australia, Britain, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea and the United States, the tourism board said.

"Entire villages and market areas have been wiped out," said David Fisher, the Nepal head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

It said it was dispatching emergency supplies including blankets, first aid kits, stretchers and body bags.

Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah vowed an all-out response.

"The pain and loss you have suffered is not small," he said in a statement on social media. "But I want to assure you that you are not alone in this difficult time -- the state is with you with all its means and resources."

AFP