Nepal police says in its latest update that 289 people have died as of 14:30 local time (09:45 BST) on Thursday.

Image source, Reuters

Prime Minister Andy Burnham says the UK has pledged £5 million to help with the response effort in Nepal following the flash floods on Wednesday.

"It’s a devastating picture that is emerging from what has happened in Nepal," Burnham says during a visit to South Wales.

"Immediate action" is being taken and the UK is deploying consular support staff to the region "so that British nationals will be able to access support 24/7", he adds. The latest from Nepali police is that 33 UK nationals are currently missing.

“Obviously, there are a number of British nationals who currently are thought to be missing and we’ll be providing all the support we can to their families in what is a very distressing and devastating situation," he adds.

Burnham says the UK has also offered to send emergency responders to the region, but "that’s obviously a matter for the Nepalese government".

Phanindra Dahal
BBC Nepali, reporting from Trishuli

The Nepal Army says it has rescued more than 350 people so far today from areas affected by the flooding.

The army’s spokesperson said 50 of those rescued were foreign nationals, including 30 Indians, eight Chinese, eight Koreans, two Americans and two Italians.

Anahita Sachdev
BBC News, Delhi

Sisters Ashna and Shreya Ahuja are desperately waiting for news of their parents after flash floods struck Nepal.

Deepak and Madhu Ahuja had travelled from Texas to Mount Kailash on a group pilgrimage organised by the spiritual group Isha Foundation to celebrate Deepak's 60th birthday.

The couple had completed the trip and were crossing from Tibet into Nepal when floods hit near the border, their daughters say.

One of the siblings spoke to their parents just hours before the floods.

The sisters have contacted the US State Department and US embassies in Delhi, Nepal and China, but they say they have no concrete information on the whereabouts of their parents.

“It’s only been one day, but it has felt like much longer,” the sisters tell the BBC. “We just love them a lot and want them to come home.”

Image source, Ahuja family

Phanindra Dahal
BBC Nepali, reporting from Trishuli

I am outside a military training centre in Trishuli and have already seen a few rescue helicopters moving in and out.

Dozens of people are outside the barracks to find out the whereabouts of their missing relatives.

It's a military training centre but the army has converted it into a forward rescue base with military and private helicopters co-ordinating search operations.

Image source, Getty Images

India’s foreign ministry says there are 288 Indian nationals who remain uncontactable following the floods in Nepal and Tibet.

Approximately 200 Indian nationals have been stranded in Tibet and are seeking to be evacuated following the floods, India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal says in a press briefing.

“There may be some people who are missing there and we are trying our best to locate them through the local authorities,” he adds.

Jaiswal says 21 Indian nationals, who travelled to Nepal for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra – a sacred pilgrimage to Mount Kailash - have been rescued.

Image source, Reuters

The director of the Centre for Disaster Studies at the Tribhuvan University in Nepal, Basanta Raj Adhikari, has told BBC Newsday there is a risk of "second and third waves" today or tomorrow.

"We don't know yet," he says, adding that he continues to discuss the situation with colleagues in China who are monitoring the situation. "There isn't high rainfall, but [a] landslide might happen."

He adds that they have been monitoring Himalayas mountain hazards - "climate change is really happening here," he explains.

"We are observing but we didn't know that that would happen on [a] particular day."

In its latest update on social media, Nepal police says 270 bodies have now been recovered from areas affected by Wednesday's floods.

About 100 Chinese nationals are reported to be missing following flash floods in Nepal, according to China's foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian.

Lin says China is maintaining close communication with Nepal and supporting joint search and rescue efforts. He adds that China would also provide emergency assistance based on Nepal's needs.

The number of people missing in the mudslide disaster in Tibet's Gyirong county has risen to 558, which includes 260 foreign nationals, according to China's state broadcaster CCTV.

A further 826 people are missing in Nepal, Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said in its latest update. It's currently not clear if these figures overlap with China's.

Image source, Reuters

A tour guide who made a last-minute decision to postpone his group's journey through Gyirong into Nepal has recounted their close shave with the flooding, describing Wednesday as "a day of immense luck, yet one weighed down by a heavy sense of foreboding".

“It rained all night [on Tuesday], and I was worried we wouldn’t be able to see the snow-capped mountains," the guide, surnamed Mu, has told Zhejiang-based Tide News. "So I decided to lead them up first to a viewpoint in another area."

While the group was trekking in this other spot on Wednesday morning, they heard a "loud rumbling sound".

"No one could have imagined it was a mudslide,” Mu says.

At midday, they descended and proceeded to apply for permits to enter Nepal through the Gyirong border crossing.

This process typically takes an hour, but on Wednesday, "our permits never came through", Mu notes.

"It's only then that we caught up with the news and realised what had happened."

Image source, EPA

David Fisher, head of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies delegation in Nepal, says there is "still an extreme situation" in the regions hit by Wednesday's floods.

He tells 5 Live Breakfast some areas in the north of Nepal "are only accessible via helicopter because the flood has knocked out bridges and roads".

"Our team has been on the ground a bit south of there and they have been able to travel to make contact with local volunteers."

Fisher says "it's very clear to us there are very sharp needs" and a lot of people had to "sleep in the elements" last night, but "much, much more is needed".

He adds that entire villages and market places have been "swept away" and fears the death toll "could continue to go up".

At least 77 of the people missing in Nepal were travelling with the Isha Foundation, founded by Indian spiritual leader Sadhguru.

The group had completed its pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar and was heading back to Kathmandu when contact was lost, according to the foundation's coordinator, Maa Gambhiri.

She told news agency ANI that one of the foundation's team members spoke to group leader Praveen at 09:05 local time (04:20 BST) on Wednesday. When they tried to contact him again ten minutes later, they could not get through.

“We couldn't get through to him or anyone else. It seems the incident occurred within those ten minutes.”

The foundation says it is still waiting for information from the authorities.

The group includes people from the US, Australia, the UK and several European and Asian countries. Many are of Indian origin, Gambhiri said.

A Nepalese tour operator has confirmed that nine UK nationals remain missing since crossing the Nepal-Tibet border while on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash.

The latest from Nepali police is that 33 UK nationals are currently missing.

The Trekkers’ Society has told the PA news agency that the nine British citizens who were completing one of its tours comprise of four males, aged between 14 and 54, and five females aged between 40 and 53.

Roshan Basnet, the general manager of the company, tells PA: "When the flood happened, they were still at the Chinese immigration (at) the border. After the flood happened, we had no contact with our tour guide.

"We were very saddened, some of my cousins were (on) that trip, so we don’t have any whereabout for them as well."

BBC Tamil

Image source, BBC Tamil

More than 30 pilgrims from India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu remain missing in Nepal, according to the operator that organised their trip.

The group of 57 people was travelling with the Kumbakonam-based Super Yatra Agency.

Owner Syed Sadiq tells BBC Tamil his son Umar Farooq was among them and was working as a guide.

“The last time I spoke to him was on Tuesday night, before the floods,” he says.

Sadiq says they have since been informed that helicopters sent from Kathmandu had rescued some Indian nationals, but it was not yet clear where they were from.

He adds they are still waiting for information about the group.

Sanjaya Dhakal
BBC Nepali Service

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

The Nepal Tourism Board says 644 tourists are still out of contact following the devastating Bhotekoshi floods in Nepal.

Around 178 Indian tourists remain missing according to Sunil Sharma, a spokesperson of the board.

Additionally, 127 Nepali tourists, 53 Ukrainians, 51 Malaysians, 65 Americans, 35 Australians, and 33 UK nationals remain out of contact, he tells the BBC.

“We are coordinating with the relevant authorities for their search and rescue,” Sharma says.

Deputy Superintendent of Nepal Tourist Police Bisworaj Adhikari tells the BBC that they are still collecting information from tour operators about the tourists who had travelled to the area.

The area impacted by the flood includes a popular route towards the Hindu pilgrimage site of Kailash Mansarovar, which is located in Tibet. It also includes the popular trekking area of Langtang and a religious site called Gosain Kunda.

Adhikari says that around two dozen tourists had been rescued and brought back from the Rasuwa district to the neighbouring Nuwakot district on Thursday. He could not confirm their nationalities.

Earlier, the Secretariat of the Prime Minister said that the Nepali Army had rescued 21 Indian nationals who were being brought back to Kathmandu.

In its latest update, Nepal's police says 177 bodies have now been recovered from areas affected by yesterday's floods and mudslide.

It adds that 33 people are receiving treatment and 3,318 police officers have been deployed so far to support rescue operations.

Tessa Wong
Asia Digital Reporter

Image source, Reuters

Simon Cook is a senior lecturer in energy environment and security at the University of Dundee specialising in glaciology.

On Wednesday, a colleague inspecting satellite imagery noticed that a lower part of a glacier close to the flooded areas was missing, indicating there had been "some kind of ice avalanche or glacier collapse", he tells the BBC.

"I think some people thought this was an earthquake that triggered an avalanche, but there’s a seismologist on our team who is convinced that it was actually the collapsed glacier hitting the valley bottom. That tells you the sheer magnitude of the event," he adds.

Cook says his team are "all shocked at the scale" of the disaster, adding there have been a number of similar events in recent years in areas such as the Himalayas, Switzerland and the Dolomites in Italy.

"But when you look at the pattern of these events, you do think climate change could have an impact," he adds.

Cook explains that global warming is possibly causing the permafrost, which is partially holding some mountainsides together, to thaw and degrade.

This "destabilises these high mountain environments", leading to more landslides, debris flows, glacial meltwater, lake outbursts and glacier collapses, he adds.

An economic as well as human costpublished at 08:00 BST

08:00 BST

Peter Hoskins
Business reporter, Singapore

As Nepal comes to terms with the human cost of the disaster, the country will also have to deal with its economic impact.

The devastating flooding has damaged critical infrastructure along Nepal's border with China - its second-largest trading partner after India.

Nepal's trade with China has grown significantly since it joined Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative in 2017.

According to data platform Observatory of Economic Complexity, total trade between the two countries totalled almost $2.2bn (£1.6bn) in 2024.

The vast majority of that figure is made up of Chinese goods - including cars, buses, electronics and food - being imported by Nepal.

Previous natural disasters cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars as infrastructure was damaged and trade interrupted.

Experienced mountaineer Alan Hinkes has previously witnessed flash floods in Nepal, but says he couldn't believe how "explosive" and "violent" Wednesday's disaster was.

"To that force, I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like that for a long time," he tells BBC Breakfast.

Hinkes says many people will be using the route to walk up Mount Kailash in Tibet, which includes "a lot of Hindus and Buddhists" taking part in pilgrimages.

Asked about the logistics of the rescue operation, Hinkes says: "At the moment it will just be helicopters. All the bridges have been swept away.

"There are quite a few helicopters in Nepal, small ones, so that is what they need really to get to these areas now."

The whole valley has been "scoured out" and all the buildings on either side of the river have just been either washed away or now buried in mud, he adds.

Hinkes says he has been through similar villages hit by mudslides in the past and "it is pretty grim to see".

Image source, Reuters

A huge emergency operation is under way after flash floods and landslides swept through Nepal and Tibet. If you're just joining us, here's what we know so far:

• At least 165 people have died, Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) has said. A further 826 people are missing, including 529 tourists, Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said in its latest update
• One tourist group operating in the area says 47 people, including guides and clients, are missing and out of contact since the floods hit
• The number of people missing in Tibet's Gyirong county has risen to 558 - including 260 foreign nationals - while three people are confirmed to have died, according to China's state broadcaster CCTV. It's currently not clear if these figures overlap with Nepal's
• The US Geological Survey says the flood was caused by "a glacial collapse and debris flow" which lead to "subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream"
• The Nepali army has deployed 2,000 military personnel for land and aerial search and rescue operations in flood affected areas to help look for survivors
• On the Tibetan side, uncertain weather conditions and the remote geography of the area are making rescue operations increasingly difficult, Chinese authorities say