Man flies to Nepal to search for family missing in floods

A man from Nepal is flying back to search for his wife, parents, brother and uncle, who have all been missing since devastating flash floods hit the region.

Pramod Poudel, who lives in Uckfield in East Sussex, says he has not heard from his family since the flood on the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday, which led to about 800 people being reported missing.

Poudel, who runs a Nepalese food truck, says "nothing remains" where his family lives.

"It's a very, very difficult time for me and for my family and my country at this moment, but obviously I have to go and see what's happening there," he told BBC Radio Sussex.

Poudel, who goes by the name Pedro, says he is travelling home because "my family needs me".

"Nobody knows what happened," he said. "Obviously a lot of people are missing and there is no information regarding who is missing, where they are, nobody can contact each other and all the bridges are broken, so you can't cross the land.

"There's no power, no electricity, so I can't contact anyone, so it's a very difficult time not knowing what's happening."

The number of people killed or missing is still becoming clear, but Nepali police say at least 270 people have died.

On Thursday morning, Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said 826 people were still missing.

The Nepal Tourism Board said 644 tourists were missing, 33 of which were UK nationals.

China's state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday the number of people missing in the mudslide disaster in Tibet's Gyirong county had risen to 558.

Among these were 260 foreign nationals, CCTV said, adding the death toll remained at three.

It is not clear if any of the missing people in the Nepali and Chinese figures have been counted twice.

The United States Geological Survey first reported the event as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake on Wednesday, but later confirmed the incident "was instead a glacial collapse and debris flow" that "caused subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream".

Climate change is known to be driving faster glacier melt in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region and scientists are trying to piece together the exact order of events.

One possibility is water from rainfall or melting ice may have destabilised the ground or ice, triggering a chain reaction.

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development has warned another flood could happen in the coming days as a result of the debris in the river systems.

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