The death toll from the flood that tore through the Nepal-China border region climbed to at least 1,225 on Wednesday, one week after the disaster, as rescue teams in both countries continued searching for 4,757 people still unaccounted for.

On the Nepalese side, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) raised its count to 1,204 fatalities.

The number of missing dropped to 4,216, a figure that includes 583 foreigners, among them two Spanish nationals, according to official sources.

RELATED: Nepal Floods Put 157,000 Women and Girls at Greater Risk

More than 21,000 personnel have been deployed to the response, working through terrain where roads collapsed and landslides cut access to the hardest-hit communities. Emergency crews have rescued 11,993 people across the north and center of the country.

The government of China’s Tibet region reported 21 deaths and 541 people missing, of whom 261 are foreigners. More than 2,300 Chinese personnel managed to open a land route into the devastated core at Gyirong after a week of work hampered by destroyed roads and continuing rockfalls. Teams have recovered 847 personal belongings and answered 876 calls from anxious relatives.

The Disaster’s Scale

The flood has been described as the largest ever recorded in the area. It pushed the Trishuli River between 15 and 18 meters above its normal level, destroying settlements along a 72-kilometer stretch of the border zone.

The wall of water obliterated the Rasuwagadhi-Kerung border post, a vital crossing for bilateral trade between Nepal and China, and damaged dozens of communities. The destruction severed a commercial artery and left entire villages buried under debris and sediment.

Authorities in both countries face a race against time as the window for finding survivors narrows. Search operations continue in the river’s path, where the scale of the damage has complicated efforts to reach remote areas and identify the dead.

IN THIS ARTICLE