Nepal floods death toll rises to 475 as almost 1,000 remain missing

Many still searching for their loved ones

Of those unaccounted for, at least 540 are foreign nationals.

JOE reported on Wednesday that two Irish tourists were among the missing when the confirmed toll stood at 162.

Nepal floods - what is happening on the ground two days on

Heavy machinery is being used by the rescue teams to dig through mud and debris in the worst-hit towns, with hopes of finding survivors fading.

Helicopters have dropped emergency supplies to thousands of people cut off in towns and valleys, while crews, some with sniffer dogs, have recovered dozens of bodies swept down into the plains.

The flood destroyed power stations, roads and bridges along the route linking Kathmandu with Lhasa, a corridor popular with trekkers and pilgrims.

Dibga Tamang, among the last people rescued from the hard-hit town of Rasuwa, was airlifted with three others to an army camp in Nuwakot.

"All of our people have gone. They are dead," he said. "I have no one left waiting for me. Everything and everyone is gone. The end."

Fears of a second disaster

Nepal's disaster management authority has warned that a lake formed by debris blocking the Bhotekoshi River at the flood site is rising and at risk of bursting.

On the Chinese side of the border, roughly three million cubic metres of water, which is about 1,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools, is expected to flow into an already dammed lake over the next three days, with peak flow due around 1 September.

"The volume of water is continuing to increase, and so is the risk," Zhu Jinfeng of the water resources ministry's hydrology department told state broadcaster CCTV.

The latest figures were reported by RTÉ News.

Experts' opinion on what may have caused the Nepal floods

But while the event was initially reported to be caused by a magnitude 4.4 earthquake, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said that further analysis showed the “seismic event was a glacial collapse and debris flow that caused subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream” and “no earthquake had occurred”.

According to the USGS, the glacial collapse had registered as a magnitude 5.2 seismic event on the Richter scale.

This seismic event occurred near the border between Nepal and China at 8.37am local time on Wednesday.