Nepal floods leave nearly 600 children missing in Rasuwa and Nuwakot

Kathmandu,UPDATED: Sep 4, 2026 09:50 IST

Nearly 600 children remain unaccounted for in Nepal's Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts after flash floods that struck parts of the country last month, while the overall death toll has risen to 1,282 and more than 4,700 people are still missing.

The floods were triggered by an ice-rock avalanche near the Nepal-Tibet border on August 26 and devastated towns and villages in northern and central Nepal. Security forces are continuing search operations across the affected areas, even as officials and schools struggle to verify the number of missing children and teachers because communications remain disrupted.

According to Nepal Police, 359 bodies have been recovered in Chitwan, 218 in Nawalparasi East, 208 in Nawalparasi West, 185 in Nuwakot, 72 in Gorkha, 60 in Dhading, 140 in Rasuwa and 38 in Tanahu. With two people dying while undergoing treatment in two hospitals in Kathmandu, the death toll has reached 1,282. The joint command of security forces is searching for 4,798 people missing from different areas.

The Kathmandu Post, citing figures compiled by local Education Development and Coordination Units, local governments and educational institutions, reported that an estimated 280 children are missing in Rasuwa and between 300 and 350 are unaccounted for in neighbouring Nuwakot in central Nepal. Surya Bahadur Khatri, head of the Nuwakot Education Development and Coordination Unit, said, "We are actively liaising with headmasters to collect verified data on missing students, though school heads are struggling to provide exact figures due to broken communications." He added, "Although a few missing students have been located, new reports of unaccounted-for children continue to arrive from various schools. We estimate that at least 300 pupils are missing in our district."

In Bidur Municipality of Nuwakot alone, roughly 250 children have been missing since the floods hit, according to Navaraj Sapkota, school inspector of the municipality's education unit. "The situation on the ground is deeply distressing. In some cases, we have located surviving parents who cannot find their children, while in other instances, surviving students are searching for missing parents," he said. Bidur has 170 educational institutions, including 142 community schools and 28 private schools. In Rasuwa, Durga Prasad Silwal, chief of the local education unit, said official verification was under way, but preliminary records showed that 280 students were currently missing across the district.

The disaster has also affected teachers and school staff, with education units confirming that 22 of them remain missing across the two districts. According to the Kathmandu Post, Rasuwa reported 16 missing teachers, including 15 from community schools and one from a private institution, while Nuwakot confirmed six missing teachers. Several teachers from Dhading and Gorkha who had travelled to Rasuwa for pilgrimage were also caught in the floods and remain missing. Although several bodies have been recovered in downstream districts, authorities have yet to verify the exact number of identified students or teachers. Ministry of Education data showed that the floods affected 22 schools across Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading, with 12 institutions completely destroyed.

The latest figures show the scale of the disaster in Nepal, with 1,282 dead, 4,798 people still missing, hundreds of children unaccounted for in Rasuwa and Nuwakot, and schools, teachers and staff among those badly affected.

With PTI Inputs

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