By Nicoco Chan and Tingshu Wang
GYIRONG, China, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Chinese officials said on Sunday that workers had recovered 12 more bodies as the search continued for hundreds still missing after a tsunami-like mudslide destroyed China’s main border crossing with Nepal.
Rescue workers in bright orange uniforms used excavators, shovels and ground-penetrating radar to scour the now-buried site of the Gyirong border crossing.
The border crossing became a grisly emblem of the devastation that followed the collapse of a glacier on the Nepal side of the border on August 26 after videos showed a black wave of water, mud and debris sweeping over it with little warning.
Reuters and other news agencies visited the land port, which sits in a narrow river gorge, in the first trip organised for international media by China’s foreign ministry on Sunday.
The mudslide has killed more than 1,300 people on both sides of the border, with more than 5,000 missing.
On the Chinese side, 43 were confirmed dead and 519 remained missing as of Saturday. Among those still unaccounted for were 261 foreigners from 23 countries, officials said.
There was no trace of the five-storey Chinese customs building that had stood at the border before the disaster. The only structure still visible was part of a nearby water tower installation in a barren grey-black mud field.
Workers had planted a Chinese flag where the nearly 20-metre-tall border gate once stood.
Behind signs warning “Danger Area Pass Quickly”, groups of rescue and recovery workers dug through the debris while red excavators stood nearby.
FINGERPRINTS AND TATTOOS
Officials told visiting reporters that recovery teams were taking fingerprints and recording identifying features such as tattoos as bodies were recovered. They had also collected 993 personal items from the site.
Families and diplomats representing countries with missing nationals have privately expressed growing frustration over what they describe as limited information-sharing by China.
Beijing has not detailed how it plans to proceed with DNA identification of victims as remains are recovered, representatives of four governments told Reuters.
Diplomats also said China had not answered questions about whether video from the border crossing, including facial-recognition footage, could be shared with families or used to help identify the dead.
China’s foreign ministry has said its release of information about the floods was “transparent and timely” and that it is ready to work with other countries and agencies.
HINDU PILGRIMAGE SITE
Once a historic trading hub, Gyirong had become the main crossing for trade and travellers between Nepal and Tibet after a 2015 earthquake damaged an alternative route farther east.
China will consider whether it should be built back differently in the wake of the disaster, officials said.
The crossing was closed between July last year and January after an earlier glacial flood. Alongside serving as a gateway for Chinese exports, including electric vehicles, it had become a transit point for Hindu pilgrims travelling through Nepal to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for both Hindus and Buddhists. Hindus believe it to be the eternal home of Lord Shiva and his wife Parvati.
Many of the foreign nationals still missing in Tibet were pilgrims with extended families in India, diplomats in Beijing have said. There are 49 Indian citizens among the missing.
China has pushed back against any suggestion that it could have provided any further early warning data before the glacier collapse in Nepal.
Chinese scientists have found more than 3,000 glacial lakes, of which 187 are classified as high-risk and are monitored via remote sensors or on the ground, officials told reporters.
“This disaster occurred on the Nepalese side of the border, further international cooperation is required to enhance monitoring and early-warning capabilities,” Norbu Tsering, deputy head of the emergency rescue headquarters, said.
(Additional reporting by Ella Cao; Writing by Mei Mei Chu and Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Saad Sayeed and Ros Russell)
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