Nepal floods fury: Man clings to mango tree as gushing water comes crashing down, swallows buildings, people
As the torrent swept him downstream amid mud and debris, he fortunately stuck up in a mango tree and clung to it until help came.
PTC News Desk: A Nepali labourer Bibek Kamal was involved in digging work outside a newly built house in Tibet on Wednesday when raging water, mud and rock came crashing down, sweeping him and everything near him away.
Kumal, 24, was working in Bidur, downstream from the worst-hit Rasuwa district, near Nepal's Himalayan border with China's Tibet, when he heard a hissing sound. His four co-workers, standing above the five-foot (1.5 metre) deep pit, shouted at him to get out and run.
By the time he managed to scramble out of the pit, his co-workers had already fled. "I started running. Then a wall of water came thundering down as if it was an earthquake," Kumal said from his bed at Kathmandu's National Trauma Centre, his brother Dinesh sitting beside him.
As the torrent swept him downstream amid mud and debris, he fortunately stuck up in a mango tree and clung to it until help came. He said that while he was clinging to a mango tree, he distressfully watched houses getting disappeared in no time.
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Later police reached out to him and pulled him to safety. He suffered injuries to his right leg after being struck first by the water and then by a large stone. His own home, located elsewhere, escaped damage, he said.
The flash floods have killed at least 157 people in one of Nepal’s worst disasters, while hundreds of others, including several foreigners, are still missing.
Three more people who were injured in the floods were being treated along with Kumal as additional survivors were brought to Kathmandu. Authorities said more than 114 people had been rescued so far and were receiving treatment at hospitals in Kathmandu and Rasuwa. The area outside the trauma centre was crowded with relatives, friends and concerned people waiting for updates.
Houses swept away
The disaster began after what appeared to be a huge mass of mud and rocks collapsed into a river along the Nepal-Tibet border. The resulting flood swept through downstream villages, destroying homes, roads and other infrastructure.
Security camera footage from the Chinese side of the border showed people running to safety moments before a powerful wall of mud, rocks and water hit the area. Buildings and vehicles were swept away, and many people lost their lives.
The exact reason for the landslide is still unknown. However, the German Research Centre for Geosciences reported that a magnitude 4.4 earthquake occurred about seven minutes before the time shown on the security camera footage.