Key facts
- At least 1,386 people have died in Nepal's floods, with 5,130 still missing.
- The floods were caused by a glacial collapse near the Nepal-China border.
- Survivors are returning to find their towns, including Betrawati, buried under mud and debris.
- Many residents lost homes, shops, and belongings, with some unable to identify where their houses once stood.
- The disaster has left many families with nothing, impacting their economic well-being.
- This is not the first disaster for some families, who also endured the 2015 Nepal earthquake.
Survivors of devastating floods in Nepal are returning to find their towns buried under mud and debris, with little left of their former lives. The disaster, triggered by a glacial collapse near the Nepal-China border, has resulted in at least 1,386 deaths and left 5,130 people missing.
In Betrawati, a town that once catered to pilgrims and trekkers, residents are sifting through the grey silt that now covers the landscape. Anusa Thapa Magar, who rushed home from the Maldives, found her family's two-storey house completely gone, raising fears that her grandmother, who was resting in her room, is buried beneath the mud.
Scores of survivors are sheltering in tents on a hillside above the former town, walking down daily to search the wasteland for any remnants of their homes, shops, and loved ones. The highway linking Bidur to Betrawati is impassable, replaced by thick mud, and reaching the settlement now requires a difficult climb.
Along the path to Betrawati, abandoned shoes, school ties, and backpacks serve as silent testaments to the panic that ensued as people fled the torrent of water, mud, and rocks. A school building stands half-buried in debris.
Residents described receiving frantic phone calls minutes before the flood hit, but few grasped the speed or scale of the approaching disaster. Kalpana Thapa Magar, a garment business owner, recalled being told to run and looking back to see everything, including people, disappear.
In Devighat, downstream, partial house shells remain, and residents are salvaging what they can, though many feel they have no reason to return. Madhav Ghimire, 42, carries the keys to his former six-room house, unable to identify its exact location.
For many families, this disaster follows the 2015 Nepal earthquake, which killed nearly 9,000 people. However, unlike the earthquake, which allowed for salvaging belongings and rebuilding, this flood has swept away homes and buried farmland, leaving families feeling they have lost everything. Shanti Dangol, 61, stood on a single broken tile, the only visible trace of her three-storey lodge, holding a photograph of what once was.