Archived event
Nepal Police raise toll to 553 in new Friday evening bulletin
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It was published at 28 August 2026, 8:55 pm NPT and is kept online as the record of what was confirmed at that hour. Figures in it are no longer current.
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Nepal Police raised the confirmed toll again, to 553 dead, in a bulletin posted on the force's own website as of 5pm Friday. That is up from the 547 the force had given minutes earlier, which itself came within minutes of Nepal's disaster authority NDRRMA's separate figure of 538. Nepal Police reported 1,473 people injured in Nepal, up from 466 the day before. China's state media separately put Tibet-side deaths at 5 on Friday, then Xinhua raised the figure to 7 by Saturday morning; Xinhua also put the missing count on the China side at 554, down slightly from the 558 given a day earlier. The flood hit Timure in Rasuwa on Wednesday morning and ran down the Bhote Koshi into the Trishuli and the Narayani.
Rescue counts vary by agency and by day. Police said 1,545 people caught in the flood had been rescued as of the 7am bulletin, and NDRRMA told ABC News on Friday afternoon that 3,253 people had been rescued by helicopter across the flood zone, a broader tally that has not been named or broken down; NDRRMA's Friday evening update put that same tally at about 3,742, AP reports. NDRRMA's own earlier, named list stands at 113. The Nepali Army said on Friday its helicopters had rescued 706 people from Timure, Syabrubesi and Mailung by 3pm, up from 449 at 12:20pm, including 40 foreign nationals: 29 Indian, 4 German, 4 Chinese, 1 Omani and 2 South Korean, Onlinekhabar reports. Nepal Tourism Board said 117 stranded tourists have now been rescued from the Bhotekoshi area, 85 of them Indian, 16 Chinese, 9 South Korean, 2 American and 2 Italian, with 3 not yet identified by nationality, Onlinekhabar reports. Twenty eight police personnel remain out of contact.
The 5pm bulletin also gave a new district breakdown, adding up to the 553 total: Chitwan 222, Nawalparasi East 134, Gorkha 47, Dhading 40, Nuwakot 38, Tanahun 31, Nawalparasi West 28 and Rasuwa 13, Nepal Police said. Chitwan and Nawalparasi East, both downstream on the Narayani, again took the largest increases. Health facilities in Chitwan, which has the most bodies, can hold only around 50 at a time, which is slowing identification and release to families.
NDRRMA repeated its missing count of 977 people in Nepal in Friday afternoon's update alongside the new death toll, ABC News reports, so the figure has not moved since Friday morning. Nepal's tourism board says 517 of the missing are foreign nationals, from 33 countries. Out of contact does not mean dead. Phone lines, power and internet are down across the valley and are coming back slowly.
The barrier lake upstream near the Chhochen Khola and Purepu Tsangpo was reported to have breached, but Nepal's government has not confirmed a dam collapse and the two accounts have not been reconciled. Chinese state media report the lake has since grown rather than drained. See the update above for what is and is not confirmed. USGS first read the shaking on Wednesday as an earthquake, then found no earthquake took place: the signal came from an ice and rock avalanche that fell into the Lhende Khola on the Tibet side, dammed the river, then broke.
The Home Administration says 13,295 security personnel are working the flood zone: 7,250 from Nepal Police, 4,200 from the Nepali Army and 1,845 from the Armed Police Force, Khabarhub reports. NDRRMA's Friday evening update put the number of security personnel mobilised even higher, at about 14,829, AP reports. Prime Minister Balendra Shah travelled to Bidur in Nuwakot on Thursday to see the damage.
In India, the NDRF and the Sashastra Seema Bal have rescue teams on standby in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and the NDRF says the Gandak, which the Narayani becomes downstream, could see higher water levels. Nepal turned down broader offers of search and rescue teams from India, China, the US, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh earlier in the week, the Kathmandu Post reports, saying its own army and police could handle the operation. By Friday evening it reversed course for a narrower group. See the update above for who is coming and why. Cash donations still go through a single channel into the Prime Minister's Disaster Relief Fund.
Keep off the banks of the Bhote Koshi, the Trishuli and the Narayani until officials say it is clear.