‘Swept away’: Nepal families search for relatives after devastating floods
About 180 people have been killed and 1,400 are missing, with numbers expected to rise significantly after apparent glacial collapse in Tibet unleashes flash floods. Kathmandu, Nepal — It was a normal school day on Wednesday at Trishuli Secondary School in Nepal’s Nuwakot district when Gyan Deep Sapkota, a grade 11 student, suddenly heard his teachers yelling. Bidur, the city where the school is based, lies on the banks of the Trishuli river. A flash flood was barrelling down from upstream, where the river is known as the Bhotekoshi. “Our teachers were shouting for us to leave,” he recalled, speaking to Al Jazeera on the phone. “Some of us took a small old bridge and crossed to a safer area, while most of the students took up to the hills. Among the missing are police, government employees, hydropower engineers and Nepalese, apart from hundreds of foreign tourists in Nepal.
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Scoop News DeskNepal · Published Updated
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All of it is gone now.” A statement released by Nepal’s Prime Minister’s Office said 19 vehicle bridges and 43km of highway connecting lower regions of the Himalayan nation to the affected areas have been swept away by the flood. Some of the students also had panic attacks and fainted. After a suspected glacial lake outburst upstream in Tibet caused a massive flash flood that swept away entire settlements and even dams in the way.
