By The Straits Times | Created at 2026-08-29 14:31:19 | Updated at 2026-08-29 15:56:08
1 hour ago
NUWAKOT, Nepal – An electrical technician at an upcoming hydropower station along the Bhote Koshi River in northern Nepal, Bikash Tharu would show up for work daily at around 8am. But on Aug 26, he and his co-workers were running late having overslept because of gruelling work the previous day.
That delay turned out to be a life-saver. As they climbed down from their living quarters closer to the river they saw a large dust cloud with thunderous noise hurtling down the river.
They realised something was terribly amiss and ran back to higher ground – a decision that saved their lives on the day of the devastating flash flood on Aug 26 that even washed away the under-construction dam that Tharu and his colleagues worked at.
“I want to thank God we were late that day, that saved our lives,” Tharu told The Straits Times, clutching a bottle of ORS, a rehydration drink, and a packet of biscuits handed to him at a relief camp run by the Nepali army in Battar in Nuwakot district.
He and his colleagues spent three nights in villages in higher reaches, sleeping in the open and one night at a public school, until on Aug 29 when they were evacuated to the relief camp on a chopper.
The army relief camp in Nuwakot has been a key centre of the Nepali government’s relief and evacuation efforts, where the roar of choppers landing and taking off is incessant. So far, the camp has received over 5,000 survivors, many with injuries. They have been screened for treatment and, if needed, sent to hospitals in Kathmandu for treatment.
Among the others at the camp on Aug 29 who had a narrow escape was Jari Bardewa, 73, and her husband Bhakta Bahadur Bardewa, 69. Both were inside their house, around 300 metres from the Trishuli river in Trishuli Bazaar in Nuwakot district on Aug 26.
Locals hollered out to them to flee. “Aayo, aayo (It is coming)”, they screamed. “I didn’t realise what was coming,” Jari Bardewa said.
She came out and then saw a sight that left her shocked as well as flummoxed - she saw clouds of dust flying and ravaging water along the river bed. “The river had swelled so much that it seemed it was going to consume the entire world,” she added.
She rushed back in to bring her husband. Together they ran to higher ground but the mud and water level surged quickly and reached up to the level of the waist of her husband, who was trailing behind.
“I thought he was going to die,” she said as her eyes welled up.
Even with the water swirled around her thighs, she grabbed his left arm and pulled. “God knows where I got the strength from but I managed to save him,” she added, seated at the relief camp in Nuwakot.
Her husband fractured his left elbow and suffered minor injuries on his left leg while fleeing. “I saw so many neighbours die, being swept away in the waves that kept coming,” Jari Bardewa said, still reeling from the horror that day.
Dr Ram Thapa Chhetri, a government doctor at the relief camp’s field hospital, told ST that survivors arrived with wide-ranging injuries, including injuries to the head, fractures and laceration wounds. Those in need of treatment are being referred to nearby government hospitals, while those with life-threatening injuries are airlifted directly to Kathmandu.
Many also have had to be counselled for trauma given the devastating experience they have lived through - their loved ones lost and a place that they lovingly called home now transformed into a haunting disaster zone.
“They are still waiting for their loved ones and suffering panic attacks from post traumatic stress,” Chhetri added.
Many bodies have also been brought into the camp at Nuwakot and the authorities have shared several sets of fingerprints from unidentified bodies recovered there with foreign countries.
Tesering Lama, 40, who lived in Rasuwa district’s Timure Bazaar that was completely devastated, also ran with all her might to save her life.
She fled from her fourth-floor house with nothing on her but just the clothes - a pink t-shirt and a skirt - that she still wore on Aug 29 when she spoke with ST at the relief camp in Nuwakot.
She remembers the water lapping hungrily at her feet but she ran faster. “I just don’t understand how I escaped,” Lama added, who spent the last three nights at her mother’s house.
Not sure where she will go now, she is at least happy to have survived, even though she lost several loved ones, including two sisters. “I can’t even understand if all this is really happening,” she said. “It feels like I am living a nightmare.”
Phurpu Dorje Jhale, 40, her husband who didn’t even have time to put on his slippers and ran out barefeet, is similarly still dazed and haunted by the tragedy. “I still can’t tell it’s day or night,” he said.
Survivors, including Jari Bardewa who left for Kathmandu on Aug 29 to stay with her son, now have a long arduous task to rebuild their lives. Others from the camp, which doesn’t have lodging facilities, have also had to seek shelter with relatives and friends in Kathmandu and other places.
Any immediate return back to their villages seems out of the question for them, including for Jari Bardewa who lived by the Trishuli river. “I am too scared to go back,” she said.
Meanwhile, outside the camp, the desperate search for those missing continued. People desperately pored over the lists of those rescued at the camp that were splashed on the walls.
Among them was US national Suresh Kodru, 52, who arrived from Boston on Aug 28, and was looking for any mention of his wife who went missing while returning to Nepal from Tibet on the Gyoring Post border crossing.
She was part of a group that had gone there for the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage.
“I have literally been going from pillar to post for the last two days,” said the emotional father of a 17-year-old son.
“We built such a nice family, now it has been broken apart.”
