At least 19 killed and nearly 400 tourists unaccounted for as flash floods tear through Nepal's Tibet border region

At least 19 people have died and close to 400 others remain out of contact after violent flash floods ripped through a mountainous district of Nepal along its frontier with Tibet, authorities said on Wednesday. Among those unaccounted for are large numbers of foreign visitors who had been travelling in the disaster zone.

According to the Nepal Tourism Board, records compiled from tourism operators and travel companies list 384 travellers as missing in the affected areas — 291 of them foreign nationals and 93 Nepali citizens. Officials stressed that teams were still working to confirm the whereabouts of everyone on the list, meaning the figures could shift as verification continues.

Police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle confirmed that nineteen bodies have been recovered so far. He said rescue and relief work was being coordinated intensively, adding that the disaster had also severed contact with numerous officers from his own force deployed in the area.

Dramatic footage circulating online, much of it released by the Nepali police, showed churning torrents of muddy water crashing down Himalayan valleys in the district bordering China, engulfing whatever lay in their path.

Suman Chalise, a 34-year-old teacher in Nuwakot district, described watching the flood carry off eight or nine trucks along with houses and people. Speaking to AFP, he said the devastation he witnessed was heart-wrenching and unlike anything he had seen before.

Earlier, Kafle acknowledged that the full extent of the destruction was not yet known, noting that people living close to riversides had been told to relocate to safety. The Nepal Army has since dispatched helicopters and specialist disaster-response personnel into the affected region.

The floods have inflicted heavy damage on infrastructure as well. The Nepal Electricity Authority said power stations and solar facilities capable of producing roughly 430 megawatts had been destroyed or disabled, disrupting electricity generation, transmission and distribution networks. Several highways in the area have also been closed.

Scientists are beginning to piece together what set off the catastrophe. Sarthak Shrestha, a remote sensing and geo information analyst at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), said a preliminary assessment found nothing unusual on the Chinese side of the border. His team believes a rock-ice avalanche inside Nepal dammed the Lhende river, unleashing the cascading flood downstream.

Across the frontier, Chinese media pointed to heavy losses at the Gyirong Port crossing in Tibet. State broadcaster CCTV reported that a mudslide disaster on the Nepalese side had caused major casualties and left people missing there, while footage aired by the channel captured rushing water dragging tree branches and debris over a flooded road.

President Xi Jinping has urged an all-out rescue effort, according to the Xinhua news agency, which gave no figures for injuries or deaths on the Chinese side. Quoted by CCTV, Xi said the most pressing priority is doing everything possible to locate and rescue the missing, rapidly treat the injured and keep casualties to an absolute minimum.

Traffic authorities in Tibet's Shigatse region separately warned on social media that roads nearby remained at risk of mudslides and were unsafe for travel. The crossing has seen similar tragedy before: in July of last year, 17 people went missing when a mudslide struck near the Gyirong Port.

Monsoon rains falling from June to September routinely trigger deadly floods and landslides across South Asia each year, and the latest disaster underscores how exposed Nepal's fragile Himalayan terrain remains as the season continues.