When the mud flooded her husband's waist, Mrs. Bardewa grabbed his left arm and pulled him away, thanks to which they escaped death in the flash flood disaster.
Mrs. Jari Bardewa, 73 years old, and her husband Bhakta Bahadur Bardewa, 69 years old, are two of those who escaped death in the flash flood disaster in Nepal on August 26. The couple was in their house, about 300 meters from the Trishuli river, in Trishuli town, Nuwakot district, when the flood hit. The villagers shouted loudly urging them to run away. "I don't understand what happened," Ms. Jari said.
She ran outside and witnessed a horrifying scene: clouds of dust billowing in the air, ferocious water rushing through the riverbed. "The river water rose so high that I felt like it was about to swallow the whole world," she added.
She ran back into the house to get her husband out. The two of them ran to higher ground, but the mud and water rose too quickly, up to the waist of Mr. Bhakta who was running behind. "At that time I thought he was going to die," she said, choking up.
Even though the swirling water had reached her thighs, she still grabbed her husband's left arm and pulled him away. "Only God knows where I got my strength, but I saved him," she said while sitting at a relief camp operated by the Nepalese army in Battar, Nuwakot district.
Mr. Bhakta broke his left elbow and suffered minor injuries to his left leg while fleeing the flood. "I witnessed many neighbors die, swept away by successive flood waves," Ms. Jari said.
Electrical engineer Bikash Tharu often comes to work at the hydroelectric plant under construction along the Bhote Koshi River at 8 a.m. every day. However, on August 26, he and his colleagues arrived late because they overslept after an exhausting day of work.
That delay saved their lives. While going down to the construction site from the house near the river, they saw a large cloud of dust and a rumbling noise rolling along the river.
Realizing something was wrong, they immediately ran back to higher ground. This decision saved their lives. The disaster swept away the dam that Tharu and his colleagues were participating in building.
"Thank God we were late that day. That saved our lives," Tharu said while holding a bottle of ORS rehydration solution and a packet of biscuits distributed at the Nuwakot relief camp.
He and his colleagues spent three nights sleeping outdoors in highland villages and one night at a school. On August 29, they were evacuated by helicopter to the relief camp.
Tesering Lama, 40 years old, living in Timure town in Rasuwa district, which was completely devastated, also had to run with all his might to save his life. When the flood hit, she ran out of the house on the 4th floor, not having time to bring anything with her other than a pink T-shirt and skirt. On August 29, when talking to reporters at the relief camp in Nuwakot, she was still wearing the same clothes. "I really didn't understand how I could escape," Lama recalls.
For the past three nights, she stayed at her mother's house. Even though she now doesn't know where she will go and has lost some relatives, she still feels lucky to have at least survived. "I can't even understand if all of this is really happening. It feels like I'm living in a nightmare," she said.
Nepali officials said on August 30 that 781 people were killed and 2,502 people were missing in the flash flood disaster. On the Chinese side, according to updates as of August 29, 16 victims were killed and 546 people were missing.
Outside the relief camp, the desperate search for the missing continued. People searched for information in the list of rescued people, posted on the walls at the camp.
Suresh Kodru, 52 years old, an American citizen, came here on August 28 to find information about his missing wife while on the way from Tibet back to Nepal through the Gyirong border gate. She belonged to a group of people who came to this area on pilgrimage.
"I've really been running up and down everywhere for the past two days. We built a very happy family, and now everything has fallen apart," said the father of a 17-year-old son.
