RASUWA-BHOTEKOSHI FLOOD

Situation Report — Rural Reconstruction Nepal (RRN)

 

19 SEP 2026 DATE

19:00 NPT AS OF

EVOLVING STATUS

 

PRELIMINARY NOTE Headline figures below are drawn from NDRRMA Situation Report #18 (19:00 NPT, 19 September 2026), cross-checked against NDRRMA Situation Report #17 (19:00 NPT, 18 September 2026) for day-on-day change. Figures remain provisional and subject to NDRRMA reconciliation.

  1   HIGHLIGHTS  

• Upper Trishuli-1 recovery has grown dramatically. Cumulative bodies recovered at this single site have risen to 31, up sharply from the 13 reported yesterday, after roughly 2,000 metres of tunnel were cleared using grinders, gas cutters and rotary rescue saws. Plans are in place to transport 13 of these bodies from Adit 3 to Trishuli on Ashwin 4 (approximately 21 September).
• That recovery isn’t yet showing up in the official toll. Total deaths rose by just 1 today (1,410 → 1,411), and Rasuwa district’s own death count (199) is unchanged, even though Upper Trishuli-1 sits in Rasuwa. At least 18 of the newly recovered bodies appear not yet folded into the headline figures. This is the most significant data gap in today’s report.
• Electricity restoration has effectively reached completion. Supply is now fully restored everywhere except 46 households in Dahalfedi (Gosaikunda RM, Ward 1) and 40 in Lingling (Ward 3), a total of 86 households still without power, a major milestone from the ~90%-of-Rasuwa framing used through most of the response.
• Holding-centre numbers reversed course. After a steep multi-day decline (963 people, 23 centres yesterday), today’s count jumped to 1,342 people across 24 centres, driven almost entirely by Rasuwa (231 → 794). Nuwakot fell in the same period (611 → 427). The report doesn’t explain the shift.
• A full district-level relief distribution (5W) table has been published for the first time, and it independently confirms RRN and WHH as supporting agencies for kitchen sets, food baskets and relief food packages in Uttargaya Rural Municipality, corroborating RRN’s own field reporting. See Section 11.
• RRN’s Dhunche warehouse was restocked this morning and distributions are underway in Rasuwa and Nuwakot. See Section 14, RRN Field Response.

  2   SITUATION OVERVIEW  

Today’s report is dense with genuinely new material: a country-by-country breakdown of international SAR teams, a first-ever district-level relief distribution table, a dead-body-management chart distinguishing recovered, stored, and identified remains, and a crime-management log. Operationally, the headline story is Upper Trishuli-1, where the recovery count has more than doubled overnight, alongside a real milestone on electricity restoration. Several sections (Education, Communication, most of Health) are verbatim restatements of yesterday’s report, suggesting those data streams weren’t refreshed for this cycle.

  3   LATEST VERIFIED NATIONAL FIGURES  

Indicator	18 Sep, 19:00	19 Sep, 19:00
Total deaths	1,410	1,411 (+1 — see Highlights)
Missing	6,055	5,875 (−180)
Total rescued	13,756	13,784 (+28)
Treated / discharged / under treatment / referred / deaths	344 / 290 / 18 / 32 / 4	344 / 290 / 18 / 32 / 4 (fully unchanged, 2nd flat day)
Treated by various security forces	9,984	10,041 (+57)
Helicopter flights (Nepal Army), cumulative	1,651 (+17 today)	1,692 (+41 today)
APF flights, affected areas	320	320 (unchanged)
DNA samples: deaths / relatives (dashboard)	1,286 / 1,991	1,286 / 1,991 (dashboard); narrative text elsewhere gives 1,997 — Section 5
Deceased breakdown: female / male / body remains	336 / 549 / 525	336 / 549 / 526 (+1)
Holding centres / people	23 / 963 (Rasuwa 231, Nuwakot 611, Dhading 121)	24 / 1,342 (Rasuwa 794, Nuwakot 427, Dhading 121)
Security forces mobilised	20,929	20,935 (+6)
Gas cylinders (relief channel)	502 (stale dashboard figure)	180 total to Rasuwa (110 private, 70 subsidised) — Section 8

  4   SEARCH AND RESCUE AT HYDROPOWER SITES  

• Rasuwagadhi (120MW): Powerhouse, transformer room and control room reached; no findings. Heavy equipment still can’t reach the site given the terrain.
• Langtang (20MW) and Chilime (22MW): Confirmed stood down, consistent with yesterday.
• Upper Trishuli-1 (216MW): The major story of the day (see Highlights). A 5-member Nepal Army team searched 200m inside Adit 1 at Hakubesi and found nothing. Drone searches continue at Adit 3. A Korean team conducted drone reconnaissance over the office and residential areas. An excavator was flown in by Nepal Army aircraft. Steel-cutting operations continue.
• Trishuli 3A (60MW): No findings in tunnel or powerhouse. Rainfall again deposited roughly 4 feet of mud and debris at the tunnel entrance; cleared once more.
• Trishuli 3B (37MW): Unchanged. Office building foundation exposed 2m below river level; residential structures A1, A2, B1, B2 and D still not located. Excavation now extending along the powerhouse wall/flank area.

  5   DEAD BODY MANAGEMENT, DNA SAMPLES AND FORENSIC PROCESSING  

(largely new content this round)

• Of 1,411 total bodies recovered, 1,292 are described as safely stored underground and 110 have been handed over to identified families, the same 110 subtracted from the missing-persons total. The remainder appears to be in transit or pending processing.
• DNA samples collected: 1,286 from remains, and either 1,991 (dashboard) or 1,997 (narrative text) from relatives, an unreconciled internal inconsistency in today’s own report. Of the relative samples, 85 came from families of missing foreign nationals.
• 1,949 samples have been received for testing at the Nepal Police Central Forensic Science Laboratory (Samakhusi) and 1,728 at the National Forensic Science Laboratory (Khumaltar). These lab totals are larger than the stated sample-collection figures, suggesting they may combine both remains and relative samples, the report doesn’t clarify.
• International forensic personnel remain deployed at both labs: 10 from India, 2 from Singapore and 6 from South Korea at NPCFSL; 9 from India and 15 from China at the National Forensic Science Laboratory.

  6   INTERNATIONAL SAR TEAMS: DEPLOYMENT STATUS  

(new summary table in today’s report)

Country	Deployed	Composition	Status
China	24	8 tunnel experts, 15 forensic	Returned to Kathmandu, Ashwin 1 (17 September)
India	54	24 Indian Army, 11 NDRF, 19 forensic	Returned to Kathmandu, Ashwin 1 (17 September)
South Korea	39 + 4	KDRT	39 returned home Bhadra 26 (11 September); 4 returned to Kathmandu Ashwin 1 (17 September)
UAE	13	Tunnel expert	Returned home Bhadra 31 (16 September)
Malaysia	10	Drone expert	Returned home Bhadra 27 (12 September)
Australia	26	19 drone expert, 7 forensic	Returned home Bhadra 29 (14 September)
Total	170

This is the first time NDRRMA has published a full accounting of the international contingent; nearly all foreign teams have now departed, consistent with the operation’s overall wind-down.

  7   ACCESS, INFRASTRUCTURE AND ALTERNATIVE ROUTES  

Largely a restatement of yesterday’s report: Krishnabhir two-way traffic holding since 17 September, Shital Bazaar still one lane with blasting underway, Galchhi–Devighat–Dhunge–Trishuli fully clear, Bidur–Betrawati still at 9.2 of 10km with the Bhainse–Betrawati stretch’s rock-cutting and Bailey/Acrow bridge work continuing as previously described. Suspension bridge repairs unchanged at – 5 of 20 underway.

  8   ELECTRICITY, FUEL AND COOKING GAS  

• Electricity: Effectively complete restoration except 86 households across two Gosaikunda RM wards (see Highlights).
• Fuel: Nuwakot station reserve now 23,000L petrol (up from 10,000L), 60,000L diesel (up from 45,000L) and 9,000L aviation fuel (unchanged), a substantial resupply. A new cumulative figure discloses 150,000L of aviation fuel consumed from Nuwakot Station to date for SAR and relief flights.
• Cooking gas: The dashboard’s long-stale “502 cylinders to date” figure has disappeared from today’s report entirely, replaced by a new, apparently reset figure: 180 LPG cylinders delivered to Rasuwa (110 private-vendor, 70 subsidised/grant). This looks like a methodology change rather than a real decline; treat the two figures as incomparable.

  9   EDUCATION, COMMUNICATION AND WASH  

Education and Communication sections are verbatim restatements of yesterday’s figures (35 temporary learning centres, 2,359 student kits, 117/120 Nepal Telecom towers, 12/29 satellite terminals, etc.), suggesting no refresh this cycle.

WASH carries one new item: 9,500 metres of pipe have been distributed through the Water Supply and Sanitation Division, Nuwakot, to implement schemes across the Central Jail, Bidur Water Supply Users’ Association, Kalikhola and Belkotgadhi areas, with installation underway. Other WASH items (Baireni Bazaar, emergency tankers, Bidur voltage stabilizers, Siddhalek school water supply) are restated unchanged.

  10   HEALTH SECTOR  

Almost entirely a restatement of yesterday’s figures: 8,509 cumulative holding-centre services, 8,066 EMT cases, 11,251 cumulative MHPSS services, 4 forensic teams/12 personnel, 160 persons with disabilities identified, 111,502 medicine/supply units dispatched. One new figure: the Nepal Army-deployed medical team has now treated 3,999 people to date (up from recent figures in the high 3,800s–3,900s).

  11   RELIEF DISTRIBUTION BY DISTRICT (5W SUMMARY)  

(entirely new section this round — a full agency-level breakdown by district and municipality)

This is the first time NDRRMA has published a detailed 5W-style table naming individual supporting organisations by ward and sector. Of direct relevance to RRN:

• Uttargaya Rural Municipality, Rasuwa lists RRN and WHH among supporting agencies for:
  • Shelter and Non-Food Relief: including kitchen sets (300 sets) among tarpaulins, blankets, NFI kits and temporary shelter kits, jointly credited to ActionAid, CSRC, DEPROSC, HFH, IRW, KIRDARC, PIN, PLAN, RRN, SCI, WHH and WVI.
  • Food Security: relief food packages (300 units) and food baskets (299 packs), jointly credited to ActionAid, CARE, CSRC, DEPROSC, Fastenaktion, LUMANTI, PLAN, RRN, WHH and WJR.
• These are multi-agency cumulative totals, not RRN-specific figures, so they shouldn’t be read as a count of RRN’s own distributions, but they independently confirm RRN and WHH’s presence and activity in Uttargaya at the government level, consistent with RRN’s own field reporting this week.
• Elsewhere, other districts and municipalities (Bidur, Kispang, Belkotgadhi and Tarkeshwar in Nuwakot; Gosaikunda and Amachodingmo in Rasuwa; Galchi, Benighat Rorang, Gajuri and Siddhalek in Dhading) show extensive multi-agency relief across WASH, shelter, food security, education, child protection and GBV prevention. 

  12   CRIME MANAGEMENT  

A new tabulated log restates previously known incidents: 2 arrested over theft from a flood victim’s body in Chitwan, 29 apprehended over looting a flood-swept safe in Dhading (NPR 9,268,505 recovered), 1 arrested for fraudulent donation collection in Kathmandu, 1 arrested for a Cyber Bureau case involving derogatory content targeting ethnic groups, 173 posts flagged and 88 removed for disrupting social harmony (identical to the figures first reported over a week ago), and 1 apprehended over concealed gold ornaments in Dhading.

Note: the table’s dates are given as “2024” and Bikram Sambat year “2081” throughout (e.g., “27-Aug-24, 11 Bhadra 2081”), which doesn’t match the 2026/2083 timeline used everywhere else in this response. This is very likely a year typo in the source document rather than a real date, and the Bhadra day-numbers align with the correct 2083 dates already established in this series.

  13   NOTABLE CHANGES AND INFORMATION GAPS  

• Upper Trishuli-1’s recovery count (31) has outpaced the official death toll (+1) and Rasuwa’s district count (unchanged at 199). This is today’s central data-quality issue; treat the national and district totals as lagging the on-the-ground recovery by at least 18 bodies until the next report catches up.
• The holding-centre reversal (963 → 1,342 people, driven by Rasuwa specifically) breaks a multi-day decline trend without explanation.
• DNA relative-sample counts disagree within the same report (1,991 dashboard vs. 1,997 narrative).
• The gas-cylinder tracking methodology appears to have reset rather than genuinely declined; don’t compare today’s 180 to the previous 502.
• Education, Communication and most of Health sector figures are unchanged from yesterday, suggesting those inputs weren’t refreshed this cycle rather than reflecting a genuine plateau.

 

  14   RRN FIELD RESPONSE  

• Rasuwa. Warehouse stock at Dhunche was replenished on 19 September ahead of the next distribution cycle: three truckloads arrived early morning carrying kitchen sets earmarked for 350 households and hygiene kits for 150, unloaded with RRN and WHH staff on site. Distribution continued the same day in Ward 3, Thulo Gaun, Uttargaya Rural Municipality.
• Nuwakot. Activity over 18–19 September covered both material relief and psychosocial support. 150 kitchen sets were distributed across Bidur Municipality-7 (100 in Tupche, 50 in Sole). On 18 September, RRN ran a Psychosocial Support and Psychological First Aid (PFA) session for children and adolescents at the Tupche Phant holding centre, split into two groups (13 adolescents, 23 children), following an earlier group session for 150 students at Chandeshwori Secondary School. Cumulative PFA/psychosocial reach in Nuwakot now stands at 106 people: 13 adolescents, 23 children, 15 government-school teachers and 55 women reached through small-group sessions, in addition to the 150 students reached separately at Chandeshwori.