Fan Hong last heard from her husband on the morning of the Nepal-Tibet disaster. More than a week later, the 31-year-old is desperately searching for information about Lin Bo, who was working on a Chinese highway project in Nepal. Struggling to get information from authorities, Fan turned to social media for help.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy husband works on a project in Nepal, about 5 kilometres from the Gyirong border crossing. I want to know what the situation is, but I haven\u2019t been able to reach him,\u201d the 31-year-old from China\u2019s Sichuan province wrote on Rednote.<\/p>\n
Her post has gained more than 18,000 likes and nearly 4,600 comments. She is one of many in China with missing loved ones trying to piece together information they are finding online, as Tibetan advocate groups say information is being suppressed on that side of the border.<\/p>\n
A screen outside a shopping mall in Beijing shows a news report featuring rescue workers at in Gyirong county. Photograph: Greg Baker\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Lin began working on repairing the Syaphrubesi-Rasuwagadhi Highway \u2013 which links Nepal to Tibet, China, through the Gyirong border crossing \u2013 in 2024. He had been living on site and working on a 16km stretch of the road.<\/p>\n
Fan says that rescue missions into the construction site have stalled. She says relatives of survivors are asking the Chinese authorities for permission to send up their own drones or helicopters to look for the missing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel more disheartened with each passing day. Feel colder and colder inside,\u201d she told the Guardian. \u201cI don\u2019t even have any tears left.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is just over a week since the collapse of a glacier triggered devastating floods along the Nepal-Tibet border, destroying entire villages and killing more than 1,200 people. On Wednesday, 4,216 remained missing, according to Nepal officials. Chinese authorities say 541 remain unaccounted for on the Tibetan side, including 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries.<\/p>\n
The relatively low official death toll from the Chinese authorities has also raised some concern among Tibetan advocacy groups, given the scale of the destruction seen in video footage. \u201cAll we can do is imagine \u2013 and that should terrify us,\u201d said Tenzin Choekyi from Tibet Watch. As of Thursday, China had officially reported 21 people killed.<\/p>\n
While in China, the official narrative heavily focuses on rescue efforts, online posts across Chinese social media show an emotional outpouring of grief and mourning. On Douyin, China\u2019s version of TikTok, photographs of missing border inspection officers are shared under the hashtag \u201cSalute to heroes guarding the nation\u2019s gateway\u201d.<\/p>\n
In China, families with missing loved ones say they are relying on information from Nepal, as well as foreign embassies and social media. Tibetan advocate groups say information on the Tibetan side of the border remains heavily restricted.<\/p>\n
On 30 August, Tibetan police reported that 10 people had been punished for spreading what authorities called \u201cfalse information\u201d about the scale of the disaster online.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis crackdown is obstructing not just public reporting of the disaster and relief efforts but the basic work of establishing whether communities are alive and receiving the support that they need,\u201d said Tencho Gyatso, president of the US-based Tibetan advocacy group the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT)<\/p>\n
\u201cSources are now afraid to speak to outside groups including ICT. One source told ICT it was \u201cextremely unsafe\u201d to speak. Another asked us not to make further contact given the potential ramifications,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A press conference held Gyirong after the Nepal-Tibet disaster. Photograph: China News Service\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Fan says she is mainly relying on information from Nepal.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone seems to have forgotten about the workers on the Syaphrubesi\u2013Rasuwagadhi Highway project \u2026 All the news coverage is about the hydropower station [in Nepal].<\/p>\n
Families of foreign tourists who went missing in Tibet are also desperately searching for information,<\/p>\n
Sridhar Avvari. Photograph: Supplied<\/p>\n
British nationals Sridhar Avvari, 43, his wife, Deepti, 41, and their 14-year-old son Abhinav went missing near the immigration area at Gyirong on 26 August, close to the Nepal-Tibet border. The family lives in India and relatives believe they over on to the Tibetan side.<\/p>\n
In a call to the family days earlier, Deepti Avvari told them that there would be no signal but would talk when she returned to an area with network activity. After the flash flood, calls to Deepti\u2019s phone stopped connecting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no signal, so we can\u2019t talk \u2026 After coming down, I will call you again,\u201d Deepti told Priyanka Rapaka, her sister in law.<\/p>\n
They are desperately waiting for updates.<\/p>\n
Deepti Avvari is among the missing. Photograph: Supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t get any information from China \u2026 We are checking online only who are rescued and \u2026 how many are dead,\u201d Rapaka said.<\/p>\n
British national Neetu Goyal Tiwari. Photograph: Supplied<\/p>\n
Chinese authorities say they are now able to reach the main disaster zone by road. According to state media they are describing the region as an active search and rescue operation and are searching for hundreds of missing people.<\/p>\n
Naresh Goyal is anxiously waiting for news about his sister, Neetu Goyal Tiwari, a 51-year-old missing British national who flew from India to Kathmandu on 14 August to join an Isha Foundation pilgrimage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last message received is that they have reached Gyirong immigration office. \u201cThey said they are going to check out.\u201d He says he found his sister\u2019s name on a list of missing people circulating on social media, but said he is unsure where the list originated. Getting information out of the Chinese authorities has been difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever we ask the China government, they are telling us that they will update us through the embassy of the UK,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very painful here Now we have spent at least seven days and every minute we are waiting,\u201d Goyal says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fan Hong last heard from her husband on the morning of the Nepal-Tibet disaster. More than a week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-613914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}