Shashikala Khatiwada has her husband’s last messages saved.
Dipak Rimal worked on the Trishuli 3A hydroelectric project in Mailung, Nepal. On Wednesday, around 4 in the afternoon, he wrote to her from inside a tunnel: he and his colleagues were safe, but they needed someone to get them out of there. Shortly afterward, another, more urgent message arrived: the door was blocked. They did not know how to get out.
Khatiwada tried to call him that same morning, around 8. There was no answer. At noon, she tried again: the phone was already turned off. According to her, 35 people were trapped inside that tunnel. Since then, she has demanded that the Nepali Army search for them, and although they assure her that the operation is ongoing, they have also admitted that so far they have found nothing.
The sudden flooding of the Lhende River, a tributary of the Bhotekoshi, swept away entire settlements in the districts of Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading. Authorities report 1.400 missing. Rimal is one of the names that no one can yet cross off that list.