Kazakh officials are working to locate at least one Kazakh tourist who is unaccounted for following flash floods and mudslides in Nepal that killed hundreds of people and caused widespread destruction.
A Kazakh woman was part of a tourist group in the area affected by the disaster near the border between Nepal and China’s Tibet region, the Kazakhstani state news agency Qazinform reported on Thursday. The agency and several other media outlets in Kazakhstan quoted Zhanbolat Usenov, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as saying the tourist had crossed into China with the group and her whereabouts were unknown.
Kazakhstan´s diplomats were working with local officials in a search for the Kazakh tourist, according to the media reports. Some later reports said a second Kazakh woman was unaccounted for in the area of the floods.
On Wednesday, the Kazakhstani government had said no Kazakh citizens were reported among the dead and missing.
The governments of other Central Asian countries are also monitoring the disaster aftermath.
Citing Nepali police, The Kathmandu Post reported on Thursday afternoon that the death toll from the floods had risen to 359. That number is expected to rise. More than 800 people, many of them foreign tourists, are unaccounted for, according to authorities.
