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. Some of the students also had panic attacks and fainted.
“It’s still giving me goosebumps and anxiety.”
About 180 people have been killed and at least 1,400 people are missing in a vast region spanning Nepal and Tibet in China, 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. Among the missing are police, government employees, hydropower engineers and Nepalese, apart from hundreds of foreign tourists in Nepal.
By late on Wednesday, Nepal Police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle said that search and rescue teams had recovered 95 bodies. But both the death toll and the number of missing are expected to rise significantly, as the water recedes and connectivity with the worst-hit regions is re-established. Senior superintendent Rajendra Prasad Dhamala, a police officer monitoring the search in the Bagmati province, one of the regions affected, said most of the bodies recovered were found in downstream areas.
Many of those missing are Indian tourists who were heading to Tibet for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, a major Hindu pilgrimage to a lake that is sacred to Hindus, Buddhists and Jains.
‘Everything has been swept away’
Healthcare worker Rajendra Poudel, a resident of Betrawati, a town in Nuwakot district, described apocalyptic scenes.
“Till early this morning it was very scenic around here. There were houses and horticulture gardens here. There was a hydropower station and plant. Everything has been swept away,” Poudel told Al Jazeera.
“There is nothing here. This is heartbreaking; I am out of words.”
Lal Bahadur Rai, another resident of Nuwakot district, said the floodwaters reached within 10 metres of his house. “Many houses and even a school across the banks of my village have been swept away. My house was just lucky,” he said.
“There were solar power stations in the area, all of which have been wiped. There is also huge coffee farming here. 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.
The Nepali districts of Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Gorkha and Chitwan have been kept under high alert, while authorities have urged citizens to stay far away from the rivers.
Prime Minister Balen Shah, in a social media post, called for “national unity” during the crisis and urged local groups, businesses, young volunteers and citizens across the country to contribute from wherever they are and support the government’s relief and rescue campaign.
“The search for citizens missing in the floods will be intensified further,” posted Shah. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi also spoke to Shah on Wednesday and assured humanitarian assistance and support.
Searching for missing relatives
That search has seen resident Rajan Nepali visit numerous hospitals in the capital, Kathmandu, where some of those rescued were airlifted.
“My brother-in-law was accompanying tourists in Rasuwa [district]. He was in touch with us till 8am in the morning. After that, his phone has been switched off and he has been out of touch,” Nepali told Al Jazeera from the National Trauma Center in Kathmandu. “We have been looking for him in hospitals. We do not know where to go, what to do.”
Janak Raj Bohora, a civil engineer working with the Upper Trishuli hydropower project for the last four years, has been missing since the floods.
“I talked to him on Wednesday morning at 6am, but haven’t been in touch after he went for his duty. I have no information on where he is till now,” his wife, Sharmila Bhandari, told Al Jazeera, from Bajhang in western Nepal.
Dipesh Dhakal, who was working for the same hydropower project, has also been missing since the floods. Bishnu Adhikari, Dhakal’s friend, said that many in his team had successfully fled after a siren alarm went off.
But it is unclear if Dhakal made it out of the flood’s path in time. “Since the phones are not working, we cannot say,” he said.