NUWAKOT: The smell reaches the Nuwakot Army camp before the bodies do.
A week after devastating flash floods tore through northern Nepal, decomposed bodies and dismembered remains continue to be brought to the camp, where around 3,000 Nepal Army personnel are coordinating search, rescue and relief operations.
The rescuers have grown accustomed to the grim uncertainty. Families have not.
At the Army camp, as search teams prepared for another day in some of the region’s most difficult terrain, an Army helicopter brought in an elderly couple rescued from the disaster zone. They were alive but looked traumatised. Their identities were not immediately known.
For those waiting for missing relatives, such moments offer a sliver of hope. For many others, the hope is fading.
“Hope of finding survivors is fading, but the Army will continue the search and rescue operations,” an Army spokesperson told TNIE, explaining the difficult terrain and the challenges confronting rescue teams.
The scale of the devastation becomes clearer on the ground.
In Devighat and Trishuli bazaars, entire stretches of habitation have been ravaged. Homes, roads and agricultural land have been swept away or buried under mud and debris. What were once settlements along the river now resemble scars left behind by a violent wall of water.
At Devighat, the destruction is particularly evident.
Former Nepal Home Minister Janardan Sharma, who visited a relief distribution centre at Chandrajyoti Secondary School in Bidur Municipality, told TNIE, “Devighat is completely destroyed,” pointing to areas where agricultural land had been extensively eroded. He said seven to eight settlements and small towns in the stretch had suffered damage.
The school has now taken on a new role, from educating children to helping sustain families displaced by the floods.
Relief material arriving from different organisations is first collected at the school, which is functioning as a holding centre.
Families affected by the floods are identified and given supplies including rice, beaten rice, cooking oil, salt and lentils.
People are issued identification cards before collecting relief material, ensuring assistance reaches those whose homes and livelihoods were destroyed.
At the Army camp, the search for 10 people who disappeared near Syabrubesi has become a desperate race against time.
Among those missing are Indian-origin Australian citizens who had travelled to Nepal as part of a larger group headed towards Kailash Mansarovar.
One of those waiting is Sriram, an Australian citizen originally from Chennai. His wife, Shruti Chandrasekhar, remains missing.
The group reached Kathmandu on the night of August 23. They spent the following day in Kathmandu and left on August 25. They were supposed to proceed towards the immigration point and join the larger group the next morning, but delays forced them to remain in Syabrubesi.
There were 10 people in the group. Their last known contact came at around 8 am on August 26. Then the flood struck.
The family has since been trying to piece together whatever information it can find. The mobile-phone signal reportedly remained active until around 2.35 pm, although it could only narrow the possible location to a broad area around Goljung, above Syabrubesi. The terrain is so difficult that rescuers have not been able to reach every part of the area.
The uncertainty is agonising.
“If they have not gone further up, they could still be safe,” one relative said, holding on to the possibility that the missing travellers may have found shelter, reached a rescue camp or simply remained stranded somewhere beyond the reach of the search teams.
Seven days without contact, however, has transformed hope into endurance.
The missing group includes an entire family - a mother, father and their two sons. They are among several Indian-origin Australians caught in the disaster while travelling through the Himalayan route.
The tragedy has left relatives from thousands of kilometres away waiting in Nepal, following every helicopter movement and every new piece of information emerging from the rescue operation.