Ishara did not let go of the net.
She had only a few seconds to react when the water came rushing into the village of Khalte, in Rasuwa, Nepal, like a fist. Her mother tried to hold on to her, but the current was stronger and swept her downstream. Ishara became trapped in a mesh that saved her, hanging between the mud and debris until rescue teams found her alive.
Her story is one among thousands. On August 26, floods that came down the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers devastated entire villages between Nepal and Tibet. The death toll has already exceeded 900, and the missing number in the thousands. In hospitals, entire families line up with crumpled photographs, asking about their children, their fathers, their mothers.
A few kilometers away, Lok Bahadur Uchai Magar experienced his own miracle: he found his daughter Manisha, 5, alive 60 hours after the flooding. Gita, the girl’s mother, remains missing.