The mud forced its way through Keshav Prasad Baral’s door with overwhelming force.
It was Wednesday, August 26, in Nuwakot, Nepal, when a wall of rocks and melting ice collapsed onto the Lhende River, near the border with Tibet. Baral managed to stretch out his arm and grab his wife’s hand to pull her toward the terrace. He didn’t make it. The current swept her away before his eyes, and he was trapped among the debris of what had been his home for hours, until a helicopter found him alive and took him to a small district hospital.
From his bed, Baral repeats the same thing: his wife is still down there, somewhere in the mud that has yet to fully settle. The disaster has already left more than 150 dead and hundreds missing between Nepal and China, including foreign tourists who were trapped on the route to the Himalayas. Another survivor saved himself by clinging to a mango tree while watching the house where he worked disappear. No one yet knows how many stories like Baral’s remain buried alongside the bodies.