Found Safe and Still Missing: The Young Officers of Tibet's Buried Border Post
Rescuers digging through the mudslide-buried Gyirong border crossing have confirmed one much-loved young officer safe, while another, who joined the immigration police after volunteering in a previous earthquake, remains missing in the rubble.
For four days, rescue teams at Tibet's Gyirong border crossing have been picking through the remains of the port's main building — concrete slabs sheared apart, twisted rebar, and a stretch of mud where a busy customs hall used to stand. Photographs published by Tibet Daily show workers in orange reaching into the debris by hand. From that wreckage, two names have emerged to hold the country's attention: a young officer confirmed safe, and another still missing.
The mudslide struck on the morning of August 26, burying part of the crossing on the China–Nepal border in Gyirong County, Shigatse — a Himalayan valley seven minutes from the glacier country that the site's own coverage had been watching all week. As this site has covered through the week, the disaster killed at least five people and left more than 550 missing, with a barrier lake above the site forcing rescue work to pause. Rescuers have since reached the flattened core of the site, and the missing have begun to acquire faces.
The first name to resolve was "Officer Xiao Wu" (小邬警官). Wu Yanlu, a graduate of Shanghai International Studies University who went to work at the Gyirong port after graduating, had posted cheerful videos of her life at the border checkpoint — in one, she introduces herself to travelers and walks them through the entry formalities. After the mudslide, the comment sections under those old videos filled with people asking after her. "Can you reply to this? Let us know you're safe" (能回个消息吗？让我们知道你们是安全的), one typical message read. On August 29, her university confirmed to the news outlet The Paper that Wu is safe.
The other name is Fan Lele (樊乐乐), and her story has proven harder to read. A recent graduate of Tibet University, Fan volunteered in the relief effort after the January 2025 Dingri earthquake, where, state media recount, she was struck by the immigration police doing the rescuing. She joined the force after graduation and was posted to Gyirong in August 2025. On August 26, just over a year into the job, she went missing while at her post. A post by People's Daily showing her portrait in the blue China Immigration uniform has circulated widely, and a Weibo user captured the mood of the day in a comment: two pieces of news had arrived at once, a Weibo user captured the mood of the day: two pieces of news had arrived at once, "and I don't know whether to rejoice or grieve" (不知该是喜还是悲).
Why a border port that famously stood through the 2015 Nepal earthquake — a blogger on Weibo dug out the old footage to make the point — was erased by this mudslide has become its own discussion. The answer, per the official explainer now circulating, is a combination of terrain: the crossing sits where steep valleys funnel water and debris, and the mudslide's flow was powerful enough to strip the building to its skeleton. Sixty-nine firefighters are now conducting grid searches of the core zone, with drones dropping supplies where roads remain cut.
The two officers have carried the story far beyond Weibo. Baidu's trending board holds it in the second and fourth slots, and the top question on Zhihu asks how rescuers are meant to work a site where, as the question puts it, no outline of any building remains. The search itself is adapting: state media reported that a PLA helicopter reached the core zone on August 29 to airdrop materials, and that crews are now using life-detection equipment to probe as far as 20 meters beneath the mud for anyone who might still be found.