Families Cling to Hope Amid Chaos

At Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, photographs of unidentified dead are plastered on walls, printed on A4 paper in the hope that someone will recognize them. Rain regularly arrives before a loved one can, streaking and washing away the faces, forcing them to be reprinted. Hanging alongside these pictures are lists of survivors and the injured, and crowds gather at the gates desperately hoping to find their loved ones on the latter.

Among the crowd is Tilmaya Gurung, who has been visiting hospitals and morgues in the city searching for news of her sister's husband, Meg Bahadur. The 49-year-old was working at a hydropower plant in Rasuwa when the flood hit and has two children.

Loknath Chaulagain is looking for his 23-year-old nephew Sudarshan, a bus conductor who was waiting at the checkpoint in Timure, a town bordering Tibet, when the flash flood struck on Wednesday. His family says a phone call went through to his number at 9:54am local time – after the flood struck – but Sudarshan did not pick up. Since then, his phone has been unreachable.

The Scale of the Disaster

Almost 2,500 people are now missing in Nepal after a glacial collapse sent a wall of water, mud and debris tearing through the valley on the border with Tibet, wiping out communities. Some 517 bodies have been recovered on the Nepali side, according to ABC Australia. Al Jazeera reports nearly 500 bodies recovered and a missing toll well over 1,000, expected to rise further.

The flood on August 26 caused maximum damage to Timure, Rasuwagadhi and Syabrubesi in the higher Rasuwa region nearer to Tibetan border checkpoints. Downstream, it washed away buildings, electric poles, bridges, markets, homes and vehicles that stood in its path in Trishuli and Nuwakot regions. The usually buzzing Trishuli market is today covered in mud, sludge and debris.

Rescue and Relief Efforts

Helicopters conducted rescue operations on Wednesday and Thursday, airlifting the injured to Kathmandu. More than 400 injured people, airlifted from the disaster area, have been brought to the hospital, according to ABC Australia. Ramesh Kumar Maharjan, chief of the emergency medicine department, said most patients had been buried in mud and suffered chest injuries, limb injuries, fractures, head injuries, and aspiration. A five-year-old girl who lost all her family members is in critical care with a head injury.

Road access to the worst-hit areas has been cut, which UN World Food Programme country director Riaz Lodhi described as "very restrictive." Some 93,000 people are believed to have been impacted by the disaster.

Personal Stories of Loss and Desperation

At the Kathmandu hospital, people have posted photographs and contact details of missing persons on walls and pillars. Sohan is searching for his 42-year-old father, Gyan Bahadur Rana Magar, a guide who went with Indian tourists to Rasuwa. Lal Kumari is searching for her husband, Arjun Shreshtha, a tourist van driver in his late 40s, swept away in Rasuwa district. Kumari has three children, including a married daughter and a grandchild.

Friends and family are taking matters into their own hands, posting pictures of the people they are searching for. Police and volunteers are set up at desks taking the names and numbers of those who have missing relatives. Some people come here multiple times a day in the desperate hope they will receive good news.

The Road Ahead

As the full scale of devastation is yet to be ascertained, families remain stranded in the no-man's land between hope and fear: hopes of an impossible miracle and worst fears of losing someone they love. Rescuers in the areas hardest hit have to prioritize survivors; they cannot bring all the bodies back, so photos are taken instead.

The death toll is on the rise, and the missing toll is expected to climb further as rescue operations continue.