Some survivors of the deadly floods on the Nepal-China border ran for their lives, others narrowly missed disaster, but all were eyewitnesses to a major calamity and its aftermath.
Rescue crews in helicopters have been plucking survivors from along the valleys ravaged in the tsunami-like flow of water and debris apparently unleashed by a glacier’s collapse.
Sivaranjani Muthunathan was travelling in Nepal by bus with 56 others from India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu. They were heading towards the Chinese border when they became stuck in what they thought was a traffic jam.
“Then there was fog, smoke, something that seemed to suddenly engulf us,” Sivaranjani, 46, said, showing a video she recorded on her phone of a torrent surging towards her.
Vehicles were swept away or buried under mud around them.
“One by one, we also climbed out through the driver’s side,” she said, recounting how she had then scrambled up a hill.
Another pilgrim who was on the bus, 53-year-old Vijayabhuvaneshwari, said: “We had no choice.”
“Every vehicle in front of us, behind us, was gone,” she said.
“As we were climbing up, we could hear what felt like explosions,” she said, giving only one name. “They were rocks and boulders crashing.”
With older members of the group struggling to climb the bank, Poonguzhali Ponmambadan, 61, unwrapped her sari and gave it to her husband to use as a rope.
“He used it as a harness to lift several old people,” she said.
Workers rescued from dam projects along the Trishuli valley described a disaster that unfolded with terrifying speed.
“There were at least 400 workers at the site,” Dev Shrestha, who was airlifted from the site where he was working, said after his rescue. “More people died than were rescued.”
Worker Buddha Tamang said he survived only because he was inside a tunnel at the dam where he worked when the flood struck – but he had managed to get out and reach help.
“I survived as I was in the tunnel,” said Tamang, who was airlifted on Thursday after being marooned for more than 24 hours.
“The senior officers working on the other side, they were all swept away.”
Gorakh Khatka, an engineer who had been in the Shanti Bazar area near the epicentre of the disaster, ran for his life.
“All we got to react was 20 seconds before mud and water was as high as 6m in the inundated area,” he said.
“We ran for our lives and spent more than 48 hours on a hill before help finally arrived.” — AFP
