Nepal’s wall of missing offers last hope after glacial flash flood destruction

A woman looks at photographs of missing persons in the aftermath of flash floods, at the Tribhuvan University Teaching hospital in Kathmandu on Sunday. | AFP-JIJI

AFP-JIJI

Sep 1, 2026

Kathmandu – In Nepal’s capital, desperate people searching for family members missing after last week’s devastating floods post photographs on a wall, clinging to a final, fading hope of finding them.

Images of Nepalis and foreign nationals of all ages are plastered along a 25-meter wall, rising as high as possible — even onto the columns outside TU Teaching Hospital.

Nearly 4,500 people are missing following the collapse of a Himalayan glacier on the China-Nepal border that triggered a tsunami-like wall of freezing water and debris, killing more than 900 people.

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