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The death toll from Nepal's devastating flood rose to 1,357 on Tuesday, with 5,326 people still missing, the country's disaster authority said, nearly two weeks after the Aug. 26 disaster. Nepal is a landlocked South Asian nation bordering China and India.
In neighboring China, 43 people were confirmed dead and 519 remained missing, according to state media, bringing the combined toll across both countries to 1,400 dead and 5,845 missing.
Authorities in Nepal have been working to verify the number of missing people by collating data from across the country.
"We have been compiling reports and verifying them. That is what has caused the increase in the number," Prakash Pokhrel, assistant spokesman at the disaster authority, told AFP. "We are trying to get to a number that is close to reality."
Rescue work continued in Nepal for a 14th day after a glacial and mountain collapse near the China-Nepal border swept away roads, bridges and homes.
Nepali rescuers are focusing on three hydropower projects where officials believe workers could still be trapped, the disaster agency said. Hundreds of hydropower workers are among the missing, but the rescue of three people from deep inside tunnels, two Nepali nationals on Friday and a Chinese national on Saturday, has raised hopes that others could still be alive.
"Our search and rescue operation is ongoing," Dharam Raj Uprety, chief of the country's disaster authority, told AFP. "We are hoping that there might still be survivors in at least three projects, and we are pushing our operations there."
Foreign experts, including teams from China, India and South Korea, are assisting Nepali rescue teams.
Nepal's foreign ministry said it had not given up hope of finding survivors. "Hopes of finding survivors remain, and the reported number of people missing inside the tunnels remains unverified," the ministry said in a statement.
With mortuaries overflowing, Nepal has buried hundreds of bodies in mass graves after collecting DNA samples for future identification, police said.
The exact cause of the glacial collapse, which resulted in the massive flood, remains unclear, though climate change is accelerating glacial melt worldwide, increasing the risk of similar disasters.
Nepal, a largely rural nation of 30 million people that has contributed little to the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming, has said reconstruction could cost billions of dollars.
David Fisher of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said reaching communities isolated by the floods remains difficult because of narrow and dangerous access routes. "Every delay means families wait longer for the support they urgently need," he said in a statement.
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