A major river in Nepal has flooded, sweeping away houses, bridges and damaging a part of hydropower station, authorities have said.
Around 50 people have been rescued from along the bank of the Budhi Gandaki River in the central Gorkha district, the army confirmed. No casualties have been reported yet, however five people are missing.
A video of the flood shows the moment raging waters sweep down a valley and wash away an entire building complex.
Nepal is on high alert and still trying to recover from catastrophic floods that hit its border towns with Tibet two months ago, leaving more than 1,400 people dead and thousands missing.
Sunday’s flood tore through the Gorkha district as children and communities prepared to mark the first day of the Dashain festival, a major moment in the Nepali calendar.
Families have been forced to flee their homes, with many facing uncertainty over where they will find safe shelter and access to essential supplies.
The flood swept away about a dozen houses and several suspension bridges, while a hydroelectric project was damaged, carrying some of the construction equipment away, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said.
Within a couple of hours, the river’s water levels at one location had risen from two metres (6ft 5in) to nearly 8.5m (27ft 9in), officials said.
Binod Parajuli, a meteorologist who works with the Nepalese government, said: “Our hydrological station was swept away and we are not getting any data from that location.”
However, experts say the debris-flow is much smaller and travelled more slowly than the devastating flash floods in August.
What caused the latest flood is still unclear. Some say a landslide may have blocked the river or its tributary for some time, causing the dammed water to burst out, while others say locals upstream saw an ice-avalanche.
Save the Children is mobilising an emergency team to respond to Sunday’s flood.
“Children’s lives have been ripped apart in an instant yet again”, the charity’s director in Nepal, Tara Chettry, said.
“We are yet to see the full scale of the damage, but they may have lost their homes, schools and communities. Many children in Gorkha will still be in shock and distress after the mega floods in August, barely having a chance to get back on their feet.”
The Budhi Gandaki is a tributary of the Trishuli river, downstream from another tributary where a glacier collapse caused the previous disaster.
