“NOTHING LEFT”
Survivors face an agonising wait to learn the fate of missing relatives, and the prospect of rebuilding their lives from nothing.
“All the settlements near the river were swept away,” Buddhi Ram Dangol told AFP in Nepal’s Nuwakot district. “There is nothing left.”
At an army base serving as a key rescue hub in Bidur, relatives crowded around lists of rescued people pasted on a wall.
“I have come here looking for my son,” said Kalka Sharda, scanning the list in desperation. “He was a labourer at the hydropower plant, but I can’t find his name, and the authorities are not saying anything.”
In an area home to vast energy infrastructure projects, Nepal’s disaster authority listed 933 hydropower workers among the missing, along with 517 foreigners, including trekkers and Hindu pilgrims to Tibet’s sacred Mount Kailash.
The Isha Foundation, led by Indian guru Sadhguru, said in an Instagram post on Saturday that 80 members had been on a group trip in the area.
The group was at the hard-hit Chinese border port of Gyirong, which has been “completely washed away”, the post said.
“At this time, there seems to be no encouraging indications of survivors at the immigration office area.”
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