Central authorities have dispatched ⁠five tunnel experts from Xizang Autonomous Region to Nepal ⁠for flood-related rescue ⁠work, according to Xinhua news agency.

The assistance ⁠was sent via helicopter on Saturday, at ‌the request of the Nepal government in a race to rescue more than 100 people trapped inside hydropower tunnels, three days after devastating floods struck the China-Nepal border region.

"The government has been continuing efforts... to rescue people trapped inside the tunnel of the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Project in Rasuwa," the office of Nepal's prime minister said in a statement.

"As part of these efforts, work to clear the tunnel entrance has been intensified since early Saturday morning," it said.

Those trapped are among 933 missing people who work on hydropower projects on the rivers where a wall of water swept down on Wednesday morning, according to the Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority.

The agency said on Thursday that the army had already rescued 350 people under "extremely risky" conditions, but that more than 100 remained trapped.

Meanwhile in Xizang, drones are flying ahead to scout conditions as rescue teams advance on foot toward key disaster-hit areas of Gyirong Port, where blocked roads and the risk of secondary disasters are complicating the search for hundreds of people still missing.

The number of people missing in the catastrophic flood from both sides of the border neared 3,000 on Saturday, as rescuers scoured deep, leg-sucking mud for survivors.

As of 1am on Saturday, seven people had been confirmed dead and 554 others remained missing, according to Xizang's emergency management department.

Nepal says there are 2,426 people, including hundreds of foreigners, who are out of contact in the country. It reported a death toll of 675 people.

"We will race against time to search for every missing person and will not give up any hope," an official with a frontline working group of the Ministry of Emergency Management told Xinhua on Saturday.

The official said rescuers are pushing deeper into the disaster zone while authorities step up monitoring of secondary-disaster risks and work to keep emergency communications running. (Agencies)




Edited by Azam Khan