Worker Survives Nepal Flash Flood by Clinging to Mango Tree

Bibek Kumal, a 24-year-old construction worker from Nepal, was digging a latrine pit outside a new house last Wednesday when he heard an unusual whistling sound. His coworkers, standing above the five-foot-deep hole, shouted at him to climb out and run. By the time he scrambled to the surface, they had already fled.

"I started running. Then a wall of water came like an earthquake," Kumal told Reuters from his hospital bed at the National Trauma Center in Kathmandu, Nepal's capital, with his brother Dinesh sitting beside him. The rushing current swept him downstream along with mud and debris, but "luckily I got stuck on a mango tree," he said. "If there had been no mango tree, I would have been swept away to my death."

The catastrophic flash flood struck the Nepal-Tibet border region Wednesday morning after a landslide of mud and rocks collapsed into a river, creating a massive surge of water and debris. The disaster has claimed at least 460 lives so far, with hundreds of people, including many foreign tourists, still listed as missing.

Kumal had been working in Bidur, downstream from the hardest-hit areas in Rasuwa district, which borders the Chinese-controlled Himalayan region of Tibet. While clinging to the tree, he watched the house where he had been working disappear completely. Police forces eventually reached him and pulled him to safety. He sustained injuries to his right leg after being struck first by the force of the water and then by a large stone. His own home, located elsewhere, was not damaged.

The flood in Nepal (In accordance with copyright law 27a)

In a bed across from Kumal at the trauma center lay Rihana Lamichhane, an 11-year-old girl. "I was at school. They closed the school because of this and asked us to go home," she recounted. "When I was crossing the river, suddenly the flood water came in a rush."

She suffered injuries to her chest and leg, but said: "I am happy to be safe. I have no idea what happened to my friends." Her mother, Rita, said she rushed to find her daughter after receiving a call from a friend. "I am happy that nothing serious happened to my daughter," she said. "I am relieved to find her safe."

Three other flood victims were hospitalized alongside Kumal, with additional casualties transported to the capital Kathmandu. Authorities reported they have rescued more than 114 people so far, who are being treated at various hospitals in Kathmandu and Rasuwa.

Outside the hospital, visitors, friends and curious onlookers gathered in the small courtyard of the trauma center. The exact cause of the mudslide remains unclear, but the German Research Centre for Geosciences reported a magnitude 4.4 earthquake approximately seven minutes before the deadly flood struck.

Mountainous Nepal experiences fatal floods and landslides every monsoon season and is prone to other natural disasters. Kumal himself survived as a teenager the devastating 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people. Now, having narrowly escaped the flood, he hopes to recover quickly and return to work.