Australia says information on 34 missing citizens in Nepal is 'very limited'

Australia Foreign Minister ​Penny Wong said on Thursday at ‌least ​34 of its citizens on pilgrimages and tours in Nepal were missing following deadly floods, but information there was "very limited". More ‌than 1,000 people including at least 600 foreigners are missing across Nepal and China's Tibet, authorities said on Thursday, after a wall of mud and rock collapsed into a Himalayan ‌river, sending catastrophic floods through towns and valleys.

Wong said at least 34 Australians were ‌among the hundreds missing. "We understand these Australians are part of separate pilgrimage and tour groups," she told a news conference on Thursday. "At this stage, access and information are very limited given the scale of disaster ... ⁠we ​are urgently seeking ⁠to confirm the welfare and whereabouts of Australians."

Himalayan Glacier, a tourism agency operating in the area, confirmed 15 ⁠of the missing Australians were on a religious tour to Mount Kailash it was organising. The ​group also included people from India, the U.S., Canada and Singapore. "They were on ⁠a pilgrimage. They were planning to enter to the China Tibet and go to the Mount Kailash ⁠and (Lake) Manasarovar, ​which is one of the holiest landmarks on earth," Chief Executive Sagar Pandey told Reuters.

All 15 were Indian-Australians, with the youngest an 11-year-old boy, he said. Pandey ⁠said he had flown over the flood zone by helicopter and believed there was only ⁠a "1% chance" of ⁠survival.

"There are no human-made things, no human settlement left. Everything is just flat ... I believe that everybody is gone."