After the flash flood tore through Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading districts on 26 August, Rasuwa alone has confirmed 127 dead and 865 missing.
Samina, 20, is taking refuge at a school, across the river from where her home once was. Sometime ago, before the thought of a disaster had ever crossed her mind, she had left her home in Shantibazar in search of work. Now, with authorities still reporting danger and no means to cross the river, she is disconnected from everything. She left the shelter for the afternoon because she wanted a change of air. “I was tired,” she says.
She is now one of the only members of her family still living.
“My brother, his wife, and their son were swept away from Soley. My maternal uncle was working at the Pairebesi substation when he went missing. My aunt’s entire family was swept away. Only a daughter survived, and she is sheltering with me now. My sister, her mother-in-law, her husband — gone. Most of my extended family lived in Khalde. Khalde is gone,” she says.
Her brother-in-law was near the Nepal-China border when the water hit. He is not on the list of the dead. He is not on the list of the living, either. No one knows where he is.
“We don’t have our family anymore,” she says.
