Nuwakot (Nepal): Trishuli Bazaar in northern Nepal’s Nuwakot district used to be a thriving market town, with its jewellery shops, fancy and apparel stores and dairy sellers attracting locals and foreign customers alike.
The decades-old market lies close to the Trishuli River and has been a key stopover for pilgrims, trekkers and tourists heading to the higher-altitude Rasuwa district and Tibet across the border.
But on Thursday, a day after an almost apocalyptic flash flood in the upstream Bhote Koshi River swept away everything on its way, what remained of Trishuli Bazaar was just slush, debris, ruins of houses and devastation.
Disaster management and relief workers are struggling to rescue people trapped in debris and also helping the locals pleading to retrieve belongings from what is left of their homes.
Sixty-five-year old Panna Lal Adarsh is looking for his wife, Jagdhar, and their 18-year-old son Rahul. An Indian from Balia in Uttar Pradesh, he has been living in Nepal for a few decades. Incidentally, it was after the devastating earthquake in 2015 that he shifted his clothes store to Trishuli Bazaar. He now fears the worst for his family.
Panna Lal left home on Wednesday morning for his physiotherapy session, and in the next few hours everything was swept away.
“Kuch bhi nahi bacha hai (There is nothing left),” he breaks down, recalling that neighbours told him how his son had shouted out for help as he was being swept away. He adds that he has not heard from the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu yet though he is registered with them as an Indian national.
Krishna Gupta, an Indian living in Trishuli Bazaar for the past 10 years, terms Wednesday’s disaster as an extremely scary one.
“The water that came surging down from the Tibetan side was as tall as five-six storeys. People did not even find time to run and escape,” he says.
Shravan Gupta, who lost two shops in the flash flood, says it felt like a “tsunami”. “Everything is destroyed. The chances of survival of those who were washed away are very low,” he adds.
Families have been split up on either side of the river with no road connectivity. Mobile and internet connectivity is extremely patchy and has made communication tough even for officials.
Meanwhile, Nepal’s Flood Forecasting Division said that a warning issued by it did not reach the people in the worst-affected Rasuwa on time, but the alert helped people in downstream areas in Nuwakot to run for safety.
However, those in Nuwakot looking for their loved ones are running from pillar to post. Sushila Giri, a 52-year-old teacher, hasn’t heard from her younger son Shishir Giri since Wednesday.
A civil engineering student of Kathmandu University who came to Trishuli Bazaar for his internship at a hydropower plant last Sunday, Shishir is missing and his mother can’t do anything but wait outside the army camp hoping her son will find his way back to safety somehow.
Helicopters on rescue missions keep whirring over Nuwakot where all the rescued are being brought and provided initial medical assistance.
Fears and fading hopes shroud Nuwakot and Trishuli Bazaar now.