Sawt Falasteen - Grief on Chinese internet as wait for Tibet flood news drags on

Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for on the Tibetan side of the frontier, where Chinese authorities keep tight control over media access and sources of information.

In neighbouring Nepal, authorities have given regular updates on the rising number of dead and display names of the missing, while national media show images of families openly grieving.

Chinese official media has neither shared the names of the missing nor published much footage of the families' reactions. But dozens of social media posts, reviewed by AFP, offer a glimpse into the emotional toll the catastrophe has taken.

"Hurry up and come back, your parents miss you a lot, we need you," one woman wrote on a popular platform on Wednesday.

She attached a photo of a her relative -- a police officer -- and his wife, who are thought to have been at the Gyirong border post last week when it was overwhelmed by a torrent of water, mud and debris that buried buildings and roads.

A previous post by the same woman showed a photo of a plane ticket to Tibet.

She told AFP last week that she had not been able to reach the couple since the flood and had been told by her relative's work unit that he was missing.

Family members of the missing were being temporarily housed in the area, she said at the time.

She has since stopped replying to messages from AFP.

Chinese authorities tightly restrict access to Tibet for foreign journalists, and AFP knows of no overseas outlets that have been able to visit the disaster site there.

Officials and state media have focused on the scale of search operations, with some reports giving extensive space to the deployment of more than 2,300 rescuers along with helicopters and drones.

They have also highlighted the concern of the country's leaders. President Xi Jinping convened an emergency meeting on aid efforts, and Premier Li Qiang travelled to Tibet in the immediate aftermath.

- 'What are we supposed to do?' -

As of a week after the floods, the death toll from inside China stands at 21, with 541 people missing.

In Nepal, the figures were more than 1,200 dead and over 4,200 missing as of Thursday.

Nearly 100 Chinese remain unaccounted for in Nepal, according to Beijing's foreign ministry.

Tibetan advocacy groups in exile have questioned China's account of the disaster, but Beijing insists that the "release of information has been open, transparent and timely".

Local authorities were "promptly replying" to more than 800 calls from affected relatives, state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday.

Online, relatives of China's missing have written of going days without updates, and of travelling to Tibet to wait for news.

Border police, tourists and construction workers are among those unaccounted for on both sides of the border, the posts show.

"I hope a miracle will happen. We all miss you very much. You must not leave us behind," wrote one father about his daughter, another police officer at the border.

"My heart hurts so much, and I haven't been able to sleep at night," a wife wrote to her husband.

Another seemed resigned to the worst outcome: "You left so suddenly, leaving behind elderly parents and young children. What are we supposed to do?"

Users shared screenshots of the names of the missing released by Nepali authorities, which include people from China.

Even those untouched by the disaster have shared in a sense of collective grief.

"Every time I see Tibet as someone's location, my heart hurts," a comment read.

Z.Ramadan--SF-PST