Believing that she had perished in the catastrophic floods in Nepal, the family of Chandika Kumari Shrestha began the mourning rituals for the elderly woman. However, ten days later, rescuers discovered her alive inside her collapsed home in the devastated Betrawati village, where she had managed to survive in a small air pocket amidst the water and mud.
Narrating the incident, police officer Mahendra Darnal mentioned, “The four-storey house was swept away by the floods and left in the middle of quicksand. While inspecting the area, we heard a voice pleading for help.” Following a 45-minute rescue operation on Saturday, Darnal and his team located Shrestha in a confined space and immediately transferred her to an army hospital.
Darnal expressed, “I had been in contact with the family, and they had already initiated the 11-day mourning period.” Shrestha was one of the many missing individuals in Betrawati, an area severely impacted by the floods in Nepal, with the region covered in dense white deposits resembling concrete. Recovery teams are still working to retrieve numerous bodies.
The town’s market and several residential buildings, some towering up to four storeys high, were almost entirely buried under debris from the powerful flood that swept through the valley, claiming over 1,300 lives across Nepal. Thousands of people are still unaccounted for.
Rescue efforts have been ongoing, with workers in protective gear seen digging and crawling through collapsed structures, blowing whistles periodically to signal for any survivors trapped beneath. Just days earlier, 24 bodies were found in a decomposed state in Betrawati’s market area within a building that once housed a small shop.
As the search for signs of life continues, nearly 5,000 individuals remain missing eleven days after the devastating floods triggered by a glacial collapse. Numerous bodies have been washed onto riverbanks far from the severely affected Rasuwa district. Mass burials for unidentified and badly decomposed bodies have been conducted in Chitwan, several hundred kilometers away.
While the outlook may seem bleak, Nepali authorities persist in their search for individuals trapped in tunnels and buried under thick layers of hardened mud. Recent efforts have resulted in the rescue of three people from tunnels, including a Chinese citizen near the Trishuli river, where over 900 individuals are feared to be trapped. Stories like Shrestha’s and that of an eight-year-old boy reuniting with his mother after surviving under extraordinary circumstances serve as glimmers of hope amidst the tragedy.