Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said 1,252 deaths had been recorded since the flash flood on August 26.
Dame Joanna Lumley has said the “heartbreaking” flash flood in Nepal “could have maybe been predicted” as she attended a vigil to remember those affected by the disaster.
The 80-year-old actress, who has visited Nepal on numerous occasions and has strong ties with the Gurkha community, told the Press Association seeing the flood sweep through the northern part of the country last week “broke her heart”.
Dame Joanna joined members of London’s Nepalese community at a candlelit vigil at Panas Gurkha Restaurant in Blackheath, south-east London, on Thursday afternoon.
Around fifty people came together at the restaurant to pray for the communities affected by the catastrophe, observe a minute of silence and light candles.
Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said 1,252 deaths had been recorded since the flash flood on August 26.
It added around 4,200 people remained missing, including 590 foreign nationals from 34 countries.
On Tuesday, Foreign Office minister Lord Wood of Anfield told the House of Lords that 36 British people are currently unaccounted for, up from the previous total of 33.
During the vigil, Dame Joanna said: “I think, actually, in this country and around the world our hearts have been absolutely broken by what happened in Nepal.
“The sense that it could have maybe been predicted by all the people who understood that by human activities somehow the world seems to be changing, seems to be getting warmer.
“These catastrophes, the great Himalayan glaciers melting, isn’t something that we haven’t heard of and thought of before.
“When you see the catastrophic outcome, I think we feel completely hopeless every day we look in the papers.”
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said a magnitude 5.2 seismic event occurred near the border between Nepal and China.
It added that a “glacial collapse and debris flow” caused “subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream”.
Rescue efforts had previously been hampered by fears of more flooding from a lake formed by the glacier collapse which sparked the flooding.
Dame Joanna said having visited and travelled in the country, “it breaks my heart because I know how difficult it is to get around”.
“It seems that we have been warned about this over the years,” she added.
“Now, there are two camps, as we both know: there is the people who believe that climate change is largely affected by mankind and those who just say that it’s completely a natural phenomenon.
“I belong to the first camp, which is that I do believe that what we do here, and the fossil fuels we burn and the plastic waste in the sea and so on, I do believe that is making the world a sicker place and a weaker place.
“And the places which are melting fastest are the high mountains and places, and so the Himalayas are there.”
Dame Joanna is the patron of healthcare charity Doctors for Nepal and vice patron of The Gurkha Welfare Trust, which provides aid to Gurkha veterans who served in the British Army.
Her father served in the 6th Gurkha Rifles, a regiment of the British Indian Army, during the Second World War.
Also present at the vigil on Thursday were Vice Lord-Lieutenant Colonel Jane Davis, former Coronation Street star Sally Lindsay, drummer Steve White and Greenwich mayor David Wardrop.
