Matti Maya Tamang walked from one list of names to another in Nepal, searching for the names of her two sons.
The flood that swept away the school building had swallowed them, or so she thought.
She spent her days checking victim registries until she stopped expecting a different answer: “I had accepted that my children had died”, she later recounted.
Meanwhile, her son Zoyal Ghale, just 8 years old, ran toward some trees when the water struck the school and clung to them there, alone, with his body injured. Rescue teams found him with a broken leg and cuts across his face.
Three days after believing him dead, Matti Maya reached his bedside in a hospital in Kathmandu and found him in front of her, alive. She said that moment gave her life back.
Nepal and Tibet continue counting their losses: at least 580 dead and nearly 2.500 people remain missing.
Zoyal is one of the few names that made it back home.