China restores road access to Tibet disaster zone as search intensifies

China has fully reopened the only road leading to the Gyirong border crossing into Nepal a week after it was torn apart by catastrophic flooding, allowing heavy machinery to reach the core disaster zone for the first time.

Rescue teams worked around the clock to rebuild the G216 national highway after debris flows washed away sections of the road when a glacier collapse unleashed mudslides and floods through river systems on both sides of the China-Nepal border on 26 August.

Before the road reopened on Wednesday, China had been airdropping equipment and supplies to frontline rescuers, while soldiers used life-detection equipment to search for the missing, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Progress was hampered by persistent rain and challenging terrain, as crews had to work in a narrow mountain gorge squeezed between unstable cliffs and a fast-flowing river. Authorities had also been monitoring upstream lakes that posed potential risks of flooding if they had burst.

Risks from the lakes have diminished but landslides were still a concern, Chinese authorities said.

"Large numbers" of heavy machines have now reached the site where the Chinese border inspection complex once stood, along with equipment to reinforce search operations, CCTV said.

Multiple rescue teams and excavators are carrying out intensive searches for people still missing, CCTV footage showed.

Crews equipped with life-detection devices and search dogs were deployed to the hardest-hit section of the border crossing area, riverbanks, ravines and damaged road corridors, the broadcaster said.

China reported on Sunday that 546 people remained unaccounted for in Tibet, including 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries, while the death toll stood at 16. The death toll in Nepal crossed 1,000 on Wednesday.