Survivors of Nepal Flood Left in Stunned Disbelief: ‘They All Died, and I Lived’
New York Times · LC · trust 33/100
A visit near the border with Tibet laid bare the effects of a swollen river’s furious speed. Miles of devastation were left behind in a flash flood that killed more than 300.
A visit near the border with Tibet laid bare the effects of a swollen river’s furious speed. Miles of devastation were left behind in a flash flood that killed more than 300.
Residents waiting to be airlifted by helicopter in the Rasuwa district of Nepal. Credit...
Anupreeta Das and Atul Loke visited the Nepal Army’s search-and-rescue base in Dhunche and flew on an army helicopter to view the damage caused by the flash flood close to the border with Tibet.
The survivors sat patiently, waiting for their turn to be transported to safety. Some wept. Mothers clutched their babies. Husbands grieved for the wives whose hands they could no longer hold. And some onlookers expressed guilt that they had little to grieve for.
But mostly, on Thursday, a day after a huge chunk of a glacier fell and triggered a devastating flood and mud slide in Nepal, leaving more than 300 dead and more than 1,400 others missing, people along the border with Tibet were still in disbelief at the bewildering speed with which a river’s fury had upended their lives.
In a matter of minutes, a grayish brown sludge of sand and pulverized rock had appeared out of nowhere and erased the bearings of their lives: Homes, shops, schools, fields, roads and bridges were mostly gone. Even the wreckage seemed to have disappeared, dragged downstream.
“They all died, and I lived,” said Dawa Lama, 45, starting to weep as he recounted how, just before 9 a.m. on Wednesday, he had heard a thunderclap, and then felt a breeze. Before he knew it, an enormous wave of muddy water had slammed into his home of 12 years in the border village of Timure, carrying away not just his belongings but also his wife and their two daughters, 7 and 8.
“How long can I remain in hope, I don’t know,” Mr. Lama said. His neighbor, who had also lost family members, placed a hand on Mr. Lama’s shoulder to comfort him.
Hundreds of people like Mr. Lama who were rescued from the region in northern Nepal — one of the world’s poorest countries — have landed in Dhunche, a town about 17 miles from the Tibetan border where the Nepal Army has a search-and-rescue base.
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