Tika Ram Pokharel was in Kathmandu sitting an exam when floodwater tore through the China–Nepal border crossing at Gyirong and Rasuwagadhi, sweeping away much of the border complex and leaving many people missing. Nepal's immigration department is still reconstructing who passed through Rasuwagadhi in the final hours before the disaster.
Pokharel, the surviving senior immigration assistant at Rasuwagadhi, said the crossing was unusually busy. He told the that around 300 to 400 people were waiting to leave Nepal for Tibet when he called a colleague at 08:20 local time, less than 10 minutes before the torrent appeared on CCTV footage from Gyirong at 10:59:53.
Gyirong flood at 10:59:53
The CCTV footage from Gyirong showed a dark wall of floodwater behind buildings on the Chinese side of the Nepal-Tibet border. Water, mud, boulders, ice and rock moved down the valley, and buildings that had crowded the valley floor were gone after the flood.
Ajay Dixit, a Kathmandu-based hydrologist, said: “This is a historic travel route between Kathmandu and Tibet,” and he described the area as geologically vulnerable, with deep gorges and steep rivers that flow at high velocity, carry heavy sediment and can bring down huge boulders.
Nepal records at Rasuwagadhi
Electronic immigration records from Nepal's Rasuwagadhi border post showed 89 Nepali and foreign nationals cleared immigration to leave Nepal for Tibet, while four people registered entry into Nepal. The system recorded its final transaction at 08:35:03 local time.
Among those leaving Nepal were 32 Indians, 12 Chinese nationals and nine Americans, and citizens of Britain, Australia and Italy were also recorded that morning. The office at Ghatte Khola Bazar, about 1.5km north of Timure and 2km from the Friendship Bridge, opened at 08:00, and travellers who cleared immigration could continue toward the border or wait in the area before crossing.
Missing at the border crossing
Four immigration employees went missing in the floods. The head of the Rasuwagadhi office went missing and his body was later recovered far downstream, while the female official who recorded the final transactions remains missing.
India's foreign ministry said at least 275 Indians remained missing in Nepal, and more than 100 Indians may have been in or around the crossing on the morning of the flood. Pokharel said the records do not match the scale of the crowd he saw described that day: “Those who completed the immigration formalities that morning, I don't think were able to com”.
Nepal's immigration department is now trying to reconstruct who passed through Rasuwagadhi before the flood. The unanswered question is how many people were actually at the border complex when the flood hit, and how many still have not been accounted for.
