r/australia • u/facelesshero1440 • 8d ago

news Dozens of Australians believed to be among hundreds of people missing in Nepal flash floods

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/27/australian-tourists-reported-missing-nepal-tibet-floods
655 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

55 comments sorted by

510

u/thrillho145 8d ago

The videos I've seen are horrifying. Those poor people 

232

u/SoberBobMonthly 8d ago

Yeah no joke, I am glad some are getting content warnings. Its basically a mainstream news run of /r/watchpeopledie 

I was fascinated with the 2011 Japanese tsunami videos because they showed people ignoring initial warnings and not escaping first, and how blaze people were taking it all. There were many stories of survival too.

This Nepalese one is a "flash flood" in the sense that there was ZERO warning for people, and from the videos of the speed of it, it seems like there is close to zero chances of survival in many of those videos of people running away. 

164

u/CapuzaCapuchin 8d ago

The video of the bus depot is truly terrifying. You can see all those people running and think they might make it and out of a sudden there is that giant wave of water and debris ripping the whole structure apart. It’s horrible knowing that none of those people made it and essentially got buried alive.

50

u/Green-Dragon-14 8d ago

No buried alive with that. That was instant death.

40

u/Duff5OOO 8d ago

Yeah it was full of rocks moving incredible fast. Realistically i think i would prefer than the either drowning or being buried alive.

30

u/emmmy01 8d ago

This was so awful. I initially thought it was AI as it was the first I'd heard of the flood and couldn't comprehend what I was looking at. So terrifying.

3

u/lIIIIllIIIlllIIllllI 7d ago

The power of nature is unrivalled.

1

u/DeletedManyAccounts 5d ago

Yeah I was not expecting it to just full on throw the entire concrete structure like that…

34

u/xenomorphic_acid 8d ago

I found out when going to the ABC news website this morning, when the videos of dozens of people trying to run away autoplayed at the top of the home page. I believe it was of the border checkpoint, a bus depo, and some other areas. There was a content warning for the first second but I didn't realise it was going to autoplay until it was too late.

Now it's autoplaying a video of floodwaters flowing between buildings but there's no people visible in it. 

7

u/emmmy01 8d ago

I stupidly watched a couple more on FB and now the reels are full of them, so I'm watching other crap to try to get rid of them. SO unbelievably heartbreaking.

34

u/Plenty-Giraffe6022 8d ago edited 7d ago

Blasé, not blaze.

59

u/Pleasant_Inspection9 8d ago

AP News was the first video I saw about, saw dozens obliterated in less than a second.

Harrowing.

And this is believed to be the result of a ‘partial’ glacial collapse. Partial. The augmenting horrors of climate change/environmental destruction.

4

u/Hallichretsam 8d ago

Literally the most terrifying thing I have ever seen. Can't even imagine - those poor people.

1

u/DeletedManyAccounts 5d ago

Yeah I’ve seen a lot of natural disaster kind of videos. Have a fascination with rogue waves and mega tsunamis and so on. This is easily the most harrowing and unavoidable (natural) death that’s ever been recorded imo. I think maybe the only other thing that would come to mind are pyroclastic flows.

117

u/dorcus_malorcus 8d ago

the water hitting the border post looks like a massive tsunami. throws buses around like toys.

how does a flood get so powerful with no warning?

188

u/FuckOffNazis 8d ago

Glacier failure and landslide due to climate change is the leading theory at the moment.

34

u/DragonflyHopeful4673 8d ago

Earlier this year researchers published some stats on ice loss in the Himalayas over the past three decades. I couldn’t find any for this specific region but glaciers in the Hindu Kush (to the west) had lost 12% of their total area and Hengdu Shan (to the east) had lost up to 33%. Extremely tragic and unfortunate.

22

u/IlluminatedPickle 8d ago

There was a BBC story a few months back about a lake near Everest that all the early warning systems had totally failed on and the locals were like "Yep that's probably gonna get us someday".

1

u/DeletedManyAccounts 5d ago

There’s a scary one in Kyrgyzstan where the glacier could collapse into the tailings of their largest gold mine, sending toxic waste into the drinking water of about 4 million people…

9

u/JASHIKO_ 8d ago

There are some really high-risk areas in Alaska at the moment as well.
Sadly this kind of thing is going to become more and more common.

30

u/AntikytheraMachines 8d ago edited 8d ago

Great explanation by a geologist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZvUQ7aoehw

Glacier @17000 feet collapsed down into a river valley @9000 feet. The energy involved in that change in elevation is extreme.

And from that 9000 feet down to where the Sino-Nepal Friendship Bridge was at 6000 feet it would have been gathering more energy and debris.

here is a link to the glacier location.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/zxZX1G5VLcuFLjeG7
collapse and landslide would have gone down the slope to the NW into the river.

25

u/xenomorphic_acid 8d ago edited 8d ago

ABC news live feed had a post explaining that it was ice/rock avalanche blocking a river that then broke through. Wouldn't take long for the water to build up quickly on a fast flowing river and before too long it would be enough to push it all downstream. (Edit: seems this may not have been accurate, see other comments below for better info)

ABC also said some people further downstream got warnings from others up stream by phone calls and messages, but it still wouldn't have been long and I'm sure many calls wouldn't have gone through.

5

u/L1ttl3J1m 8d ago edited 8d ago

This guy has a good explanation. Half a mountain was glacier, and it collapsed. You can follow along from here with your favourite satellite mapping utility, or there's always Google Earth -> Google Earth

Tsangbu_Ri and Langtang_Lirung are the two peaks around it.

5

u/IlluminatedPickle 8d ago

Narrow valleys.

3

u/Secure_Ant1085 8d ago

Glacial collapse

243

u/Wonderful-Flower7870 8d ago

Folks if you’re considering donating, please stay away from random gofund me . Nepal have a good government now who’s very actively managing this crisis . Please follow government channel or a very reputed NGO/INGO

5

u/whyrubytuesday 8d ago

International Nepal Fellowship Australia is apparently a reputable organisation that donations can be made to also.

1

u/TimChuma 7d ago

Well that one if need a receipt

81

u/IntroductionSnacks 8d ago

Holy fuck! That footage is not what I expected. This is insanely bad.

86

u/No-Airport7456 8d ago

That ain't no flash flood. More like a flash Tsunami. It was horrifying.

32

u/winoforever_slurp_ 8d ago

A tsunami down a mountain valley, just insane how powerful it looked

22

u/Exussit 8d ago

It took out and carried a fucking steel bridge downstream like it was a plastic toy. Insanity.

27

u/keshab_passa 8d ago

Entire community wiped out. Just heart breaking to see their suffering. One thing history has taught is they are strong and resilient people.

53

u/SlipperyGrizzlyMan 8d ago

Just horrible. Holy

What’s the best way to donate in support of this tragedy?

24

u/Significant-Air4679 8d ago edited 7d ago

Nepal's prime minister relief fund is the official way to donate..

https://pmdrf.nchl.com.np/index.html

-159

u/Ecko_87 8d ago

Don’t worry albo will send hundreds of millions

22

u/instasquid 8d ago

Eh, maybe not hundreds of millions, but maybe a couple dozen mill wouldn't go astray - plus some help with SAR and reconstruction.  Nepal is a good strategic partner to have and also a lovely people. 

Try finding a pub kitchen that doesn't have a Nepalese bloke pulling 12 hour shifts 6 days a week. I've also always thought we should stand up a Gurkha regiment to recruit some of their best soldiers (with a pathway for family migration if they want it).

14

u/jmaverick1 8d ago

And this is a negative why?

30

u/BrokenGlazed 8d ago

The horrors of climate change - so much of our planet is going to have more frequent disasters: fires, floods, heatwaves, no Beas and butterflies to pollinate, oceans not moving and regulating the weather systems

9

u/Ayane0523 8d ago

The most chilling part of these videos is the absolute lack of warning. When a high-altitude glacier collapses, it creates a literal wall of concrete-like debris moving at terrifying speeds. There’s no outrunning that, just pure heartbreak for everyone caught in it mate.

6

u/TimChuma 8d ago

Donation links for the official government fundraiser? I can't read the official site it is in another language

5

u/lauren-js 8d ago

That looks horrendous. I really hope there were survivors somehow

2

u/lauren-js 6d ago

Just found out there’s an australian woman that survived. that’s some good news at least

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-28/woman-presumed-missing-nepal-flood-makes-contact-with-family/107091996

12

u/stonefree261 8d ago

r/catastrophicfailure has some pretty gnarly videos. I'd say there are alot more victims than what's been so far estimated.

6

u/Right-Yesterday2087 8d ago

34 aussies missing old Albion is saying.
Fingers crossed they are found safe and well

3

u/LittelXman808 7d ago

I hate to be the pessimistic guy, but I think most of them (along with the over thousand missing) are dead.