Kathmandu, Sept 6: In a remarkable tale of survival, a 60-year-old woman was rescued alive after spending 10 days trapped beneath flood debris in Nepal’s Nuwakot district, even as her family had begun funeral rites believing she had died.
Chandika Shrestha was pulled out from a four-storey house buried under mud and debris in Betrawati area of Bidur Municipality, days after devastating floods swept through the Bhotekoshi river basin on August 26.
An Armed Police Force (APF) team discovered Shrestha on Saturday after personnel passing through the area heard a faint voice coming from the vicinity of the buried house.
The discovery came despite earlier search and rescue operations at the same location.
“We had previously searched and conducted rescue operations at this exact spot and heard no sound at all,” APF Inspector Suman Bik was quoted as saying by Kantipur.
Rescuers immediately began clearing the mud and broke through a window to reach the woman. As members of the rescue team crawled inside, Shrestha’s voice became clearer, Bik said.
“Shrestha was found with about half of her body buried in mud, with only part of her body and her head visible,” he was quoted as saying by Onlinekhabar.
The rescue operation took around 40 to 45 minutes before the woman could be safely brought out.
Shrestha was subsequently airlifted to Kathmandu in a Nepali Army helicopter and admitted to Birendra Military Hospital in Chhauni, where she is undergoing treatment.
According to rescue officials, the force of the flood had shifted the house from its original location and buried most of the structure under mud. Around three-and-a-half floors of the four-storey building were completely buried, while nearly half of the fourth floor was submerged in flood debris.
Shrestha had gone missing along with several family members after the floods struck. After repeated searches failed to locate her, relatives reportedly began funeral rites, believing that she had been killed in the disaster.
Her miraculous survival has raised fresh hopes among families desperately searching for their loved ones who remain unaccounted for following the floods.
The disaster, one of the deadliest to hit the region, has reportedly killed more than 1,300 people and left around 5,000 others missing.
However, the rescue has not brought relief to Shrestha’s entire family. Her husband, Anandlal Shrestha, remains missing, along with other family members.
The extraordinary rescue has also highlighted the enormous challenges faced by emergency teams searching through vast quantities of mud and debris in the aftermath of the floods. The fact that Shrestha survived for 10 days in such conditions, and was discovered only after rescuers returned to an area they had already searched, has offered a rare ray of hope amid the continuing devastation.
Her rescue has prompted renewed expectations that some of the thousands reported missing could still be found alive as search and rescue operations continue across affected areas.
