They were at different construction sites – Miya in a half‑constructed home, a little higher up the hill, while Hassan was on the ground floor of Ganesh Hotel, closer to the Trishuli River that flowed through Syafrubesi, a bustling market town near the Nepal‑Tibet border, now wiped off the map by the August 26 flash floods. More than 1,200 bodies have been recovered since then, at least 4,000 people remain missing, and more than 13,000 have been rescued. Then the ground trembled, and dark clouds descended upon us,” recalls 34‑year‑old Miya, who ran further up the hill with his phone and slippers that morning, five or six others running alongside him.
Hassan, lower on the slope, did not wait to reach for his slippers or his phone. He just ran, climbing a narrow, stair‑like path, up the hill, stopping only when he reached roughly 60 metres (200ft) above the road. At some point, Miya and Hassan found each other.
Around them were 60 to 70 other survivors who had also gathered high up on the hill. A decade earlier, Miya had arrived in Syafrubesi as a carpenter. Three years later, he brought Hassan with him – both men from Bihar’s Bettiah district.
Over the years, they built the town’s interiors – sofas, beds, almirahs, and kitchens for hotels and homes. On that Wednesday morning, they watched all of that washed away. The multi‑storey hotels where they had worked – Red Panda, Garden Hotel, Buddha Hotel, Sunrise Hotel – were all swallowed by the flood.
Miya and Hasan are among them. Three of their close friends and colleagues, also migrant workers from Bihar, are not. When the floods reached Syafrubesi, the men were already at work: Their shifts began at seven in the morning.
They would leave with empty stomachs and were fed tea with doughnuts or biscuits at the construction site by building owners. Their first break came at 11am, when they returned to the rented one‑room space (3,500 Nepali rupees or $23 a month) that housed five to seven migrants at a time. On the morning of August 26, they left for work alongside 34‑year‑old Arman Ansari, 20‑year‑old Samir Ansari, and 52‑year‑old Mukhtar Ansari, all migrants from Miya’s Turhapatti village.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
