Kathmandu: Two days after Nepal’s catastrophic floods, families of the missing are swelling the country’s capital, Kathmandu, as they rush to the hospitals straining their tired and anxious eyes over lists bearing names of survivors.
Some have come to Kathmandu in blind hope, like Sujan Maharjan, whose bus driver uncle, Raju, has a route through one of the villages obliterated by Wednesday’s sudden flood and hasn’t been seen since.
Others have read their relatives’ names published on a master list of survivors released and updated by Nepalese authorities, and are trying to find the right hospital.
Kabita Tamang and three young relatives have travelled from Rasuwa district, searching each hospital. Rema, a cousin, is apparently alive, but not here either, Kabita says. She crouches by the list of 47 names – 18 of them already discharged – laid upon a table at Kathmandu’s National Trauma Centre, her head in her hands.
One of the group has been crying. Kabita gets to her feet and all are again frantically scrolling social media because the community of families has started posting lists from each hospital.
“I’m just very stressed,” she says. “Most of my family is still missing.”
Close to 400 people are confirmed dead in Nepal and Tibet, and time is running thin for at least 1300 people still missing, many of them foreigners visiting Tibet’s Mount Kailash, a sacred site for Hindus. Among the missing are 39 Australians, including children.
The disaster unfolding in the Himalayas may be the biggest loss of Australian life in a single event on foreign soil since the Bali bombing of 2002.
It is Nepal’s deadliest natural disaster since 9000 people were killed in a 2015 earthquake.
Rescue efforts are being hampered by the scale of localised destruction inside an already developing nation. Communications are shot. Buildings are gone. The roads to the worst hit areas are washed out.
‘I am scared. I have pain in my heart and soul. I am heartbroken.’
Ram Kumari Shah, a sweet seller in Kathmandu
The carnage is barely 60 kilometres from the city as the crow flies, but if not for the helicopters it might as well be the other side of the world.
Only they can deliver rescue workers and retrieve the saved to hospitals. Most, perhaps all, private operators have given their machines and pilots to the relief. Hear them whirring back and forth over Kathmandu’s skies.
Nepal is accustomed to disasters. The mountains drawing adventurers, pilgrims and sightseers from around the world are the product of massive tectonic collisions.
But the scale of these floods, believed to be triggered by an ice avalanche, has shocked locals.
“Every two or three years something happens,” says Sudan, a guide at Kathmandu’s ancient Pashupatinath Temple. “But never whole villages swept away.”
A taxi driver, whose name this masthead cannot grasp, points to a news photo on his open social media feed, then scrolls down at a red light to present videos of body parts being pulled from the mud.
“Too much trouble,” he says, making clicking sounds with his tongue.
Ram Kumari Shah, a sweet seller near the Pashupatinath Temple, recalls how she has previously been to the affected areas.
“It can just happen to anyone,” she says. “I am scared. I have pain in my heart and soul. I am heartbroken.”
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