- A flash flood in Nepal’s Rasuwa district left 384 Kailash Mansarovar travelers out of contact and cut the Rasuwagadhi border route.
- Tour operators paused departures for 48 to 72 hours while authorities checked traveler safety and restored communications.
- No injuries were confirmed, and India’s Lipulekh Pass and Nathu La pilgrimage routes were still operating normally.
A flash flood in Nepal’s Rasuwa district left 384 Kailash Mansarovar travelers out of contact Wednesday and severed the Rasuwagadhi border route. Tour operators stopped departures for the next 48 to 72 hours.
The travelers included 291 foreign nationals and 93 Nepali nationals, according to a preliminary Nepal Tourism Board list. The loss of contact followed damage to roads, bridges and communications infrastructure near the Nepal-China border.
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No formal cancellation order had been issued for the pilgrimage. Authorities were still trying to establish how many people remained in the affected area and whether anyone had been hurt.
Bashu Kumar Adhikari, managing director of Touch Kailash Travels & Tours in Kathmandu, said 390 pilgrims were scheduled to cross into Tibet on Wednesday, including 93 Nepalis.
“Except for a few, we have not been able to establish contact with the pilgrims as of 3pm”
Adhikari said the crossing schedule covered the group affected by the disruption. Operators and families continued trying to reach travelers through available channels.
Broken bridges and dead networks cut the route
The flooding struck early Wednesday, August 26, 2026, in the Bhote Koshi River area of Rasuwa district. The Miteri Bridge collapsed, roads suffered damage and fiber and mobile networks went down.
The failures isolated the border zone. Communications outages also made it difficult for authorities to locate individual travelers and confirm their condition.
Sagar Pandey, president of the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal, said efforts were underway to contact the pilgrims and assess their condition. Tourist Police Deputy Superintendent of Police Bishwaraj Adhikari said authorities were coordinating with concerned agencies to collect details and establish the exact number of affected travelers.
The contact losses do not amount to confirmed deaths or injuries. No confirmed injuries among the pilgrims had been reported in the accounts available Wednesday.
The reported counts cover different groups
Two tallies described different populations in the flood zone. The Nepal Tourism Board’s preliminary count covered travelers reported missing or out of contact, while a later list covered a broader group of tourists.
| Reported group | Total | Breakdown |
|---|---|---|
| Nepal Tourism Board preliminary list | 384 | 291 foreign nationals; 93 Nepali nationals |
| Separate later tally | 403 | 341 foreign nationals; 62 Nepali citizens |
| Kailash-bound group cited by an operator | 390 | 93 Nepalis; the remainder mostly Indian nationals |
One account identified at least 105 Indian nationals among the foreign travelers. Another broader list included 37 NRIs, 12 British citizens and 3 Americans.
Those figures should not be added together. They refer to overlapping or differently defined groups connected to the flood-disrupted border area.
Only the Nepal-Tibet corridor has been disrupted
The private Rasuwagadhi-Kerung crossing was blocked by the infrastructure damage. The disruption affects travelers using Nepal’s route into Tibet, rather than all Kailash pilgrimage departures.
India’s government-organized routes through Lipulekh Pass in Uttarakhand and Nathu La in Sikkim were continuing as scheduled. Those routes were not affected by the damage around the Nepal-China border crossing.
Tour operators nevertheless paused new departures through the damaged corridor for 48 to 72 hours. The halt gives agencies time to assess road access, restore communications and contact travelers already in the area.
The border route depends on bridges, roads and network coverage across the mountainous Rasuwa district. The collapse of the Miteri Bridge and the outage of fiber and mobile services disrupted both movement and basic contact.
Authorities were collecting traveler details while agencies worked from the operator side. Pandey said the immediate effort was to establish contact and assess the pilgrims’ condition, not to announce a wider cancellation.
The 390-person crossing scheduled for Wednesday illustrates the scale of the interruption. Adhikari said only a few pilgrims could be reached as operators tried to reconnect with the rest.
Departures remain stopped for the stated 48 to 72 hours. Families and travel agencies are using that window to seek updates as officials continue checking the border area.
