Kathmandu, Sept 5: It is the eleventh day of the deadly flood that struck Nepal from the northern border of Rasuwa. The flash flood, leaving a trail of devastations through the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river systems, killed over a thousand people, injured many others and left several still unaccounted for.
In view of the unimaginable scale of destructions, deaths and people gone out of contact, some relatives of those missing since the August 26 tragedy even resorted to performing final rites as per ritual. However, the gleam of hope for some missing ones is not vanished but revived. The hope is revived because the security forces- the Nepali Army, the Armed Police Force, the Nepal Police and other rescue workers- have untiringly continued the search and rescue works.
Betrawati in Bidur Municipality-1 of Nuwakot is among the worst hit areas by the flood from the Trishuli River. The full extent of the damage is yet to be established, with details still awaited on how many people were swept away by the floodwaters and how many may have been buried inside collapsed or submerged houses.
To an unexpected development, Chandrika Shrestha, 64, of Betrawati was rescued alive today by a security team from a house submerged in the floodwaters.
The squad deployed under the command of Police Inspector Mahendra Darnal was continuing search operations along the riverbanks and in the damaged structures at Betrawati. During the operation, when the team reached the roof of the four-storey house of a local Anand Lal Shrestha, they heard faint cry for help, “Save me, save me”. It was a woman crying from inside the wreckage of a house, mostly buried.
The team then broke the house window, scoured the sludge, calmed her for little more patience, and rescued her alive. She was then airlifted to the Birendra Military Hospital by a Nepal Army (NA) helicopter. Her condition is reported out of risk.
