Flash flooding killed at least 160 people in Nepal on Wednesday.

Hundreds of people – tourists, workers and others – are missing in the wake of the devastating event that swept through communities near the Himalayan nation’s border with China.

On the Chinese side, the official state broadcaster reported at least three people dead and 265 people missing in Tibet’s Gyirong County.

The apostolic administrator of the Nepal vicariate told Crux Now the flood originated in Tibet and flowed downstream into Nepal, washing away villages and homes in four districts.

“We have 25 Catholic families, who are safe,” for the moment, said Fr. Silas Krishna Bogati, “but there were huge casualties,” in the affected area.

Bogati also reported that a priest of the vicariate, Fr. James Britto, was left stranded.

“[He] had gone to celebrate Mass to the other side of the river,” Bogati said, “but cannot return to his mission station as roads and bridges have been washed away.”

At least 19 bridges and nearly 25 miles of roadway were destroyed in the flash flood, which struck when it was roughly 9 o’clock in the morning in Nepal.

The affected area sits along a pilgrimage route, and Nepali officials say many of the victims were Hindu pilgrims on their way to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a Hindu sacred site.

“This is a pilgrims’ route to go to Mansarovat, a Hindu pilgrimage site,” Bogati told Crux Now. “This is also a trekking route for trekkers and hikers,” he said. 

The Associated Press cited officials in Nepal who said 341 foreign nationals were missing, 133 of them from India and on pilgrimage, 47 from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 24 from Canada.

The U.S. State Department confirmed it was aware of U.S. citizens affected.

Bogati told Crux Now the government has declared the affected districts a disaster area for three months and are working to treat the injured, conduct rescue operations, and move the stranded to safe locations.

“This is second time we have faced such disaster in that area,” he said, “but this one is massive.”

Bogati, who led Caritas Nepal for more than a decade, said the Church is already working to see how best to assist the rescue and relief efforts.

“The Catholic Church together with caritas will make an assessment of this disaster and make an appeal to Caritas partners,” Bogati said.

The U.S. Geological Survey registered a seismic event in the early morning on Wednesday, originally described as an earthquake but updated to be an avalanche that registered as a magnitude 5.5 incident.

The New York Times quoted University of Calgary geologist Daniel Shugar as saying early evidence suggests a glacier may have triggered the avalanche.

“It looks like a glacier in the area basically snapped off in a clean break, allowing it to fall just over a vertical kilometer to the valley bottom,” Shugar told the NYT.

“The bottom looks like a bomb exploded,” he said, adding however that it was too early to say other factors were not in play.

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