Dutch woman living in Nepal found alive after surviving floods

The Dutch foreign office has made contact with a woman living in Nepal who had been reported missing in the wake of last week’s devastating floods, which have killed more than 1,100 people.

Foreign affairs minister Tom Berendsen said there had been “good news” as he spoke to reporters during a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Ireland.

The woman is one of three Dutch nationals who were known to be in Nepal when a glacier in the Himalaya region collapsed last Wednesday, causing water and mud to surge down the Bhote Koshi river and wipe out villages in the Rawusa border region with Tibet.

She was in the Himalaya region when the disaster struck, but has reached the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, where she contacted the foreign ministry.

A spokesman said the government was still “very concerned about the fate of the two other Dutch nationals”, 29-year-old Christiaan Berghuis from Nijkerk and 51-year-old Maaike Moolhuijsen from Haarlem.

They were on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a sacred Tibetan mountain, when the floods hit. The group of 80 pilgrims were believed to be in an immigration office that was in the path of the floodwaters.