Anger and hope in Nepal's flood zone

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If you are currently overpaying on software to run your business, remember this number, 10 ,000. That's the number of new businesses that join Odoo per month. Join Odoo today at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Is the hit Netflix show Emily in Paris just harmless escapist TV? Or is Emily ruining Paris? I'm Asma Khalid and I host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The president of France has described the show as super positive for his country, soft power through cinema. But is TV tourism good for a city? For more, listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:55Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service coming to you live from London. I'm James Kamarasamy. And we begin today with the latest on the rescue efforts following Wednesday's flash flooding along the border between Nepal and Tibet and where, according to the latest official figures, more than 600 people are known to have died and 2 ,500 or so are still missing. In a region that remains on high alert for further flooding, emotions are also running high. Anger, sorrow and frustration all are swirling in what is usually a tranquil Himalayan region, a place of pilgrimage, and many pilgrims are among the missing.

1:31On the Napoli side of the border, the authorities are struggling to identify bodies, a fact which tells its own grim story about the impact of the deluge. There have, though, been some individual tales of survival, few of them more striking than that of 97-year-old Gunamaya Bokhara, a diminutive, mud-caked woman rescued from a care home in a four-hour operation. She was scooped up and carried to safety in a digger. Her relative, Deek Pak Bukhara, described her as a fighter.

2:06When my grandmother was lifted out of the debris and put on the excavator, she smiled as if she was a warrior that had returned after being victorious in a war. It was total chaos there. Water was everywhere. Everything was buried. My brother and son went further using a rope tied to their trees. They said grandma is still alive, but many others seem to be dead. After they said that, her upper body was visible. We all went and focused on her rescue. After four hours of effort, we pulled her out. On the other side of the border in Tibet, the footage released by the authorities has shown the scale of the destruction and the rescue efforts, but has focused less on the individuals caught up in the floods.

2:54Yao Xue-Chin from the Sichuan Fire and Rescue Service spoke to Chinese state media.

3:05After we arrived at a cool area, our primary task is to search for the buried and missing people. We plan to conduct a rapid overall search of the affected zone and then carry out precise segment-by-segment searches. Well, for an overview of the latest rescue efforts, the BBC's Jo Inwood has compiled this report. This is the sound of the flooding three days on. As she lies in a doorway, dressed in bright yellow robes, we do not know what has caused this woman such pain. But whole communities were wiped out in an instant. Stories like that of Giambat Sering, who looks lost as he speaks, are everywhere.

3:49My wife and son were taken by the flood, he says. My whole village was taken by the flood. Almost all the roads were swept away, all the bridges are gone.

4:02And that is why getting help to the affected areas has been so difficult. With roads destroyed, most villages are only accessible from above. But Nepal is a poor country and its resources are limited, as are helicopters. Search and rescue teams are doing what they can and still saving lives. Four figures emerge from a tunnel on the mountainside. They are all caked in thick mud. Bright yellow hardhats are the only thing that distinguishes the rescuers from the rescued.

4:39Another man is pulled from the tunnel, this time on his stomach. In total, it's thought 100 men, all workers at a new hydroelectric dam, which is now destroyed, were rescued from these tunnels. But operations like this are not without risk. Two police officers on the back of a motorbike warn people that another flood could be coming. Stay away from the river, they say. There are fears that a huge new lake has formed, high up in the mountains, and that it could burst at any time. For now, Chinese rescue teams say the risk is manageable, but it is still a risk.

5:22International aid is starting to get through. At a camp, World Health Organisation supplies are piled up. Alongside medical equipment, there are body bags. Huge pallets of supplies are unloaded, but this is just the start of what will be needed.

5:44The Red Cross estimates nearly 100 ,000 people have been affected by what was essentially a tsunami roaring down a mountain valley. One of them is Chandra. He knows that his ordeal has only just begun.

6:03I am old and my life is already half behind me, he says. But surviving is itself a great thing, and I'm grateful to have seen so much in my life and to see my relatives safe. Looking at our situation now, I hope our government will do something important for us, to give a shelter to live. But amidst all the desperation, there are miraculous stories of survival.

6:33Matty wipes away tears as she speaks on the phone to the son that she was sure had died Eight-year-old Zoyal was on his way to school when the waters came I had completely lost hope, she says, as tears rolled out her face I thought I no longer had my children And I thought there was no point in staying alive

6:59But Zoyal managed to escape, climbing up a tree. Somehow, with a broken leg, he survived. As she sits by his hospital bedside, the family reunited. He eventually falls asleep. Joe Inwood with that report. Well, as Joe mentioned, a lot of the focus of the efforts on the Napoli side of the border has been on a series of tunnels close to a hydroelectric plant that was washed away by the floods. Chinese tunnel experts reported to be making their way there. But someone who has been going back and forth to that region is Jinjin Lama. He's a Nepali mountain guide. He's been helping with that rescue operation since Wednesday.

7:41And I caught up with him just after he'd returned to Kathmandu from his latest mission. First, we went by Chopra until the tunnel gate. After that, we fix all the anchor and all the things. And then we fix line the rope and then we connect each other. And then we try to go inside. But because of the deep, deep, deep mud, we cannot be able to go until the block area. Still, there is a high chances to rock fall and not stable. So I think everyone should take care. Just to be clear, so you came in on a chopper, on a helicopter, and you got ropes down to the opening of the tunnel. Until the tunnel gate, there is possibility to go by helicopter or chopper.

8:31Were you able then to see what was happening inside? You say it's blocked. Do you get any sense of whether there might be people inside there alive still? I cannot say about this, they are alive or not. But according to the situation, it's very hard to say that it's very difficult to survive because there is liquid with the muddy. So at the moment, it's just too dangerous for someone like you to actually go inside the tunnel. You've made that assessment. Yes. If you don't know about this knowledge, I think it's better not to go inside. Have you ever seen anything on this scale before? This kind of district, I have seen only this time.

9:12And are you getting all the support you need from the authorities? Yes, we're getting many support from government and many private helicopters and everywhere. So they are doing very well and they are helping each other very well. I'm very appreciative of everybody. We have heard in the last couple of hours that there are Chinese tunnel experts who are coming to the area. Do you think that will make a difference? If they're coming to there and then something happens, yes, definitely. That was Jinjin Lama, a Nepali mountain guide, talking about his attempt to rescue people who are trapped inside a tunnel.

9:50Well, we can get the latest from the BBC's Srijana Shrestha, who's from the BBC's Nepali service. She's also in the capital Kathmandu. Srijana, we heard there from one rescuer talking about those efforts from the air, but clearly that the weather is proving quite of a challenge at the moment, isn't it? That's actually true. When I spoke to the security officials in the morning, those are the biggest challenges when it comes to the rescue because the major rescue is focused on air right now. And whoever is deployed in the field, they have been facing difficulties to go inside the muddy surface and they do not have enough equipment to go inside and find people who are missing or either alive, you know, situation like this.

10:45What about the families, the people desperately waiting for news? We have heard some criticism that the government could have allowed rescue teams from abroad to enter sooner. Is that what you are hearing? Definitely there has been a lot of desperation, anger, fear, grief among those who have lost their family members and have been waiting for so many days. The government held a press conference today and said that we will be needing a massive amount of aid and specific support in terms of rescue relief and reconstructions. And I heard that a team of rescue rescue team for Reiki has arrived from India and China already.

11:32So I think that is on the way. On the way. So international help has arrived. And yes, the government, as you say, talking about just the kind of financial challenge that this is going to pose amongst other things in the long term. What kind of figures are they talking about? So what I've learned until now, it's a little bit too early to just to estimate the damage, the financial damage that we have been through. Because the primary focus for now is to rescue the people who could be still alive or trapped somewhere in the disaster zone. And they are being brought safely to the makeshift camps, right?

12:15So the focus is there right now. So eventually the government is going there. That is what I've learned. So it's a bit too early to estimate the damage just yet. No, no, no. Of course, that is where the focus is. So in terms of the scale, the numbers have sort of been going up quite rapidly. Clearly, they're giving nearly 2 ,500 as the number of people missing. Is that still what you're hearing? Actually the number has already rose to 3 ,262 according to the latest data and the number of dead found is 669 and at least 2 ,300 people are rescued from the disaster areas. So this is just I think this is just unfolding what the disaster looks like.

13:06Srijana, many thanks for that update that was the BBC's Srijana Shrestha she was speaking to me live there from the Nepali capital Kathmandu and just a reminder you can keep up to date with all the latest developments on the floods on our website just go to bbc.com forward slash news we have all the developments for both sides of the border and later in the programme we'll be hearing a bit more from Nepal about the pilgrims who have gone there and the fate that some of them have met. You are listening to the BBC World Service. This is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy.

13:49You're listening to the BBC World Service. This is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy. President Zelensky has ordered an investigation into why ammunition was being stored in a residential area near Kiev after a Russian strike on a warehouse there late on Friday killed at least 37 people. According to the Ukrainian leader, a care home was among the buildings damaged in the attack. It's one of several in recent days to have targeted commercial warehouses near the Ukrainian capital. Let's get the latest from our correspondent in Kiev, Dan Johnson. Dan, so the number of people who died in this attack risen just in the last sort of half hour or so.

14:27Clearly, the authorities there are concerned. absolutely yes this is a large and an ongoing incident i'm actually just on the edge of that neighborhood about as close as we can get at the moment and there is an enormous response here from the emergency services because they've got so much devastation and destruction to deal with this was obviously a very powerful series of explosions the videos that we've seen from last night after this warehouse was hit by a russian drone show essentially what looks like a fireworks factory popping off with all different explosions in different directions. Very powerful, very dangerous, and that has destroyed a whole set of houses and a hotel.

15:07There are around 400 people who have been evacuated from the area. We've just been speaking to some of those across the road at the centre where they've been moved to. And the risk is that because this explosion has scattered so much ammunition into the air and far and wide that people may, even if their home hasn't already been damaged or destroyed, may be coming home to find something nasty in their garden. Right across the roads around here, it's clear there's just piles of ammunition. There's bullets scattered across the road and other things that look like they may be even more dangerous.

15:37So the emergency services are still going through the ruined buildings here. That's why the number of casualties and dead keeps increasing and they still have a lot of work to do. They're bringing in specialists demining equipment to actually go through the gardens and homes around here to try to make sure that they are safe before anybody returns. The president has announced an investigation. He said this shouldn't have happened and that people would have to be held accountable. He said there were regulations in place that prevented the sort of ammunition storage facility that we've seen here being located so close to people's homes.

16:09There was another incident like this just a couple of months ago, which brought in new regulations. But obviously they've not been enforced here. It's not clear if local people actually knew what they were living alongside. The president said allegations of criminal negligence were part of that investigation. And in terms of what's been happening over the past few days, you're talking about waves of strikes. Is this a new tactic in any way from the Russians? Just more of the same? It does feel like things have stepped up over the past 48 hours in terms of Kiev, the capital. Oh, dear. I think we've lost the line to Dan.

16:44Yes, unfortunately, the line to Dan Johnson in Kiev has gone. But we got the sense from Dan there about the extent of that attack and the devastation it's caused for the area around that building that was carrying munitions.

17:05Welcome back to NewsHour. We turn now to fire crews and footwear because in the Japanese city of Kanazawa, the local fire department has released a social media video that's now been viewed more than half a million times. and it urges locals not to tidy up shoes that have been taken off by paramedic crews when they enter houses. The videos raise the topic of etiquette in Japan. It's customary for people to take off their shoes when they enter a home and for the homeowner to then tidy them up. But it seems that it might get in the way of the crews doing their work most effectively. Let's speak to Brigitte Steger, who's the Associate Professor in Modern Japanese Studies at Cambridge University.

17:44Good afternoon. Good afternoon. So just explain the etiquette, the normal etiquette when it comes to shoes when people enter a home. Yeah, it's best to think about practices of cleanliness as a way of creating order in social life. So we have this in every culture, not just in Japan, of course. And one of these ways of creating order is making a distinction between the clean and the safe space in the house and the dirty place outside. And the practice there is that we clean our hands and take off our shoes. And that has been a practice for many, many centuries, actually. People used to have kind of slippers, so get that are easy to take off and take on.

18:37And also the house itself was higher up than the outside. So that's also, of course, a way. But yes, the issue here is that the homeowner would normally tidy away the shoes. And that's the thing that the paramedics are concerned about. Yes. So if there are many people coming to the house, of course, then there are lots of shoes outside and they are kind of disorderly. And that's our newer etiquette, I think, that has to do with hospitality, that people then create an order also of the shoes. so that if you go out of the house, then you can slip into the shoes easily and get off. The problem now with these paramedics is that there's not just one person, but there are several persons who have to get out of the house or the apartment at the same time.

19:30So what exactly are they calling on people to do differently? what they uh they do they do place their shoes in a way that they can carry a person out and slip into the shoes uh immediately without harming this person and without losing any time and um and with the etiquette that every every uh shoe is aligned at the exit or entrance means that actually only one by one can get out easily. And because that's the normal etiquette that normally you would not have three people getting out of the apartment at the same time. Right. Etiquette, but etiquette that is tailored to the very specific needs of these emergency workers.

20:18Dr. Brigitte Steger, Associate Professor in Modern Japanese Studies at Cambridge University. Thanks very much indeed.

20:36Is the hit Netflix show Emily in Paris just harmless escapist TV? Or is Emily ruining Paris? I'm Asma Khalid, and I host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The president of France has described the show as super positive for his country, soft power through cinema. But is TV tourism good for a city? For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

21:08You're listening to the BBC World Service and this is NewsHour, coming to you live from London with James Kamarasamy. A decade after an EU referendum in the UK resulted in Brexit, could today's EU vote in Iceland lead to ICE entry? Well, apart from being a rather more awkward compound word, the context is, of course, very different. The votes in a country which has previously started but shelved negotiations about joining the European Union is a consultative one. A yes would not lead to an EU application automatically. It would just be the start of talks that might lead in that direction. While Iceland is in a small group of European nations which are outside the EU but are part of the European Economic Area or EEA.

21:50That means that they trade in the single market. They accept certain EU-made rules but do not follow others, notably when it comes to their important fishing industry. Iceland is also part of the European Free Travel Schengen Agreement. But many Icelanders have recently found that their sense of security has been shaken, not least because of President Trump's threats to neighbouring Greenland. Iceland was a founder member of NATO, but it has no army of its own. We're going to hear from a couple of young Icelanders debating the issues in a moment, but let's get some overall views of this. We can speak to Kolbein Tumi Dathason, who's editor-in-chief at visir.is website and who joins us live from Iceland.

22:32Welcome to the programme. Can you just set out for us why this referendum has come about? well James the government formed at the end of 2024 they decided that there would be a referendum but it was pushed a bit forward after well I would say the shift in the geopolitics in the world both on the on the west side of the Atlantic and also what's happening in Russia the ever-changing world so they decided to have the referendum now in now in August and it's been a talking point for as you say 13 years since we stopped the talk and with the union so it's they decided it was time to hear what the nation had to say and if they wanted to see if they could get a good agreement and by all accounts things are going to be very close very close i heard on your news earlier that a new poll the newest poll suggested a slight shift to the no side and then there was the last poll last night that had a slight shift to the yes side.

23:36So it's unbelievably close, a lot of excitement and people are streaming to vote. There'll probably be somewhere close to 70 or 80 percent show. So it will be very exciting. You mentioned the security concerns. What about the economic aspect of this? Where do Icelanders stand on the economic benefits or otherwise of actually joining the European Union as opposed to what the relationship is now? Well, that is the big point for the yes side. They believe that becoming part of a greater economic area, changing out our krona, very small currency for the euro, getting better mortgage rates, you know, young people being able to buy homes, cheaper food.

24:26They see this as our way to get into a more stable society instead of counting on a small currency. But on the other side, on the north side, people say that Iceland has great purchasing power. We have high wages and people are doing very well. And why should we hand over some of our power to the EU? Interesting and we'll find out tonight, will we? Well, we'll find out. We'll get an idea about 10.30. They closed the voting at 10. Half an hour later we'll have the first numbers but we could have to wait until the early morning given how tight the margin is to hear the final result. Well, thanks very much for that briefing, Colbain Toomey-Datherson, who's Editor-in-Chief at visia.is.

25:17Well, we did bring together two 20-somethings from Iceland to talk about the issues in the referendum. Magni Naujohannesdottir is deputy member of Reykjavik City Council. She plans to vote no to joining the EU. And Thorhilda Davidsdottir-Söbeck is vice chair of the pro-European Icelandic Youth. She plans to vote yes. And NewsHour's Sean Lay has been speaking to them both. And he began by asking Thorhilda how important Saturday's referendum is to her. I think it's just extremely important, not just for me, but for all Icelanders. So I think this is kind of a way to close this democratic cycle. The government is giving the voice back to the people.