Girilal Budhathoki only wanted to get home to have breakfast with his family.
He had spent five years away from Salyan, Nepal, working as a garbage truck driver in Timure, Rasuwa, saving money so he could return to his wife and four children during the Dashain festival. On Wednesday morning, when he noticed that traffic had come to a standstill, he decided to turn back early. He did not make it to his home’s courtyard before the water appeared out of nowhere and swept away the shelter where his family was waiting, with them inside.
He was trapped beneath the debris, with one hand crushed against a wall, until he managed to grasp the metal bar of a railing he himself had built. He climbed up little by little, bleeding heavily, until coworkers found him and airlifted him to Tribhuvan University Hospital in Kathmandu.
From his hospital bed, at the age of 38, Girilal repeats that he has not heard anything about his wife or his four children and continues to cling to the hope of finding them alive.