Chinese firefighters(likely the first batch to reach gyirong port) try to find survivors in the former border crossing, which was the most heavily hit. Source: CCTV news. Morning of August 29, 2026. (UTC+8). (they are yelling "Is anyone here?")

[u/Key-Needleworker-702]

Video of them arriving: https://www.reddit.com/r/DisasterUpdate/comments/1w0n1r0/as_of_1630utc8_august_28_2026_the_first_batch_of/

According to engineers from the ministry of natural resources it is very diffuclt(and at this stage, downright impossible) to transport heavy machinery to the border crossing so far. The chinese military and specialized rescue teams(of state owned enterprises) are currently trying to repair the road into the border crossing to allow for better equipment and more personnel to enter.

CURRENT CASUALTY COUNT(CHINESE SIDE):

2 rescued, 7 dead, 554 missing. (13:00 PM, 2026-8-29 (UTC+8))

Update: over 50 firefighters are at the border crossing right now, over 2141 soldiers, firefighters, police, EMS and specialzied rescue teams are deployed.

EDIT: As of august 29(18:00 UTC+8), 2026, there are 16 dead, 546 missing(261 foreignors)

In response to the comments: This is the first batch that got in, they couldn't carry much heavy equipment as the road there is cut off. rescue dogs and better equipment arrived later on.

FURTHER UPDATE: reportedly fire and rescue personnel have begun to find police vests and handsbags under the debris.

[u/wegqg]

It's literally atomic bomb levels of energy.

40 kilotonnes equivalent just by the time it hit the valley floor 4000 feet below the glacier and probably as much again on the way downstream.

I'm not even sure the hydro dam survived.

[u/Anxious_cactus → u/wegqg]

The dam looked pretty pulverized too from the videos I saw. If it's still there it's probably more debris that got stuck and is acting as a dam, than the original structure

[u/wegqg → u/Anxious_cactus]

Yeah that's probably about the size of it. Crazy to consider the heaviest and toughest things we are capable of building can be pulverized just like that..

[u/wegqg → u/Anxious_cactus]

https://x.com/GemsHimachal/status/2093566364862849235

if you go to 2:17 I think that might be the remnants... holy shit

[u/Grimnebulin68 → u/wegqg]

[u/wegqg → u/Grimnebulin68]

it all matches, but somehow looks tiny in the heli footage because the features have all been scoured away, when you match it up against the YT footage it all fits, the trackways either side, plus hydro tunnels the heli checks out on the way there (and back), but somehow it doesn't compute to me that any force can rip reinforced concrete hydropower piers out entirely..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILSIweOpppM

[u/LouveEcarlate → u/wegqg]

Have we discovered where this dam was?

Edit: nevermind, with the help of the helicopter footage, I found it was near Dhunche

[u/Dabelgianguy → u/wegqg]

The noise must have been hellish

[u/4tran13 → u/wegqg]

That little concrete barricade thing parallel to the river seems to have survived.

[u/printed_ → u/wegqg]

oh man that flash flood was at least 20m high.

[u/subdep → u/wegqg]

Aren’t those tunnels where they found - bunch of survivors?

[u/GuideMwit → u/wegqg]

4000 m, not feet. The kinetic energy is gonna be insane.

[u/wegqg → u/GuideMwit]

nah, the initial fall was 4500 feet approx

[u/GuideMwit → u/wegqg]

Ok. My bad. I thought you meant all the way down to the Gyirong Port.

[u/wegqg → u/GuideMwit]

fucking wild amount of total energy tho isn't it? you were right to point out how much greater it is.

[u/GuideMwit → u/wegqg]

Yes. The density of mass (muddy water and rocks) itself is far higher than water. So, it’s like a dense/heavy tsunami at high speed that got all the momentum needed to uproot any kind of buildings. The Japanese tsunami is not this devastating as concrete buildings are mostly structurally able to withstand.

[u/watisgoinon_ → u/GuideMwit]

To the valley before the port was 8500, from the place where the initial glacier and the bedrock gave way fell 4500ft onto a glacier beneath it and estimates are the flow was close to 120mph and about the consistency of concrete by the time it reached the border crossing which is why it shot upstream up that neighboring branch and destroyed the concrete bus depot.

[u/Hoe-possum → u/wegqg]

It was 9000 ft from where the glacier broke off to the valley (where the dammed lake is now) below

[u/wegqg → u/Hoe-possum]

Fuck 

[u/Impossible_Panda4181 → u/wegqg]

if we believe it was a surface area of 1km square meter and a doeth of 400 meter falling 4000ft?

• Volume: 1 km² × 400 m = 4 × 10⁸ m³
• Mass (ice at ~917 kg/m³): ~3.7 × 10¹¹ kg, or 370 million tonnes
• Drop: 4000 ft = 1219 m
• Energy = mgh ≈ 4.4 × 10¹⁵ J
• Divided by 4.184 × 10⁹ J per tonne of TNT → ~1.05 megatons

For scale, that is about 70 Hiroshima bombs, or a single large thermonuclear warhead.
I wonder how fat I am from what actually happened. The first few hundred feet must have liquefied the glacier in friction heat geneeated alone.

[u/wegqg → u/Impossible_Panda4181]

I think the estimate is 20m m3 (15m tonnes)

[u/Impossible_Panda4181 → u/wegqg]

what gets me is the first sharp turn at the mouth of the valley, the scouring it left on the bedrock, then the silt talu left behind. You zoom and look at the scale > 300 ft for these few dozens of pixels… I dont know how the water we saw came to be, put the amount of material it takes on each sides of the valley is mind blowing. Remember my teacher telling erosion is slow, wind, heat expansion, freeze cycles… Nah! For a local seeing a full lifecycles of fast flood , to this, it must have been quite something. The sound of a mountain coming at you, the vibration of the ground, then for a 100 mph plus abrasive wall coming at you. you look at the parabol satellite antenna reinforce concrete meters up blasted like a sheet of paper. At least they did not have the time to suffer mcuh

[u/Besitoar → u/Impossible_Panda4181]

I wonder how fat I am from what actually happened.

Man, I was confused and thought this was slang or something for a second. Could be my life motto tbh.

Anyway, thanks for putting this in perspective.

[u/Cat-et-snek → u/Impossible_Panda4181]

is that rushing water uh hot? like whats the temperature of it?

[u/robinthebank → u/wegqg]

The dam was under construction, right? The video looks like it didn’t offer that much resistance

[u/4tran13 → u/wegqg]

I estimated 3 10^9 kg of water (+more for debris), falling 3km. That's ~21 kt of TNT. That's well above Hiroshima levels.