KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Bishworaj Khadka, a cook in Lalitpur, could hear the Nakhu River becoming louder and louder as he sat with his wife and daughter-in-law in their house situated at the river’s edge. It hadn’t stopped raining for about 12 hours and the swollen river was getting dangerously close.
When they felt the first reverberations through the living room floor, the family rushed out the door. The rest is a blur in Bishowraj’s mind. He had only managed to stuff some money into his pocket. Barely 15 minutes later, the house caved in before their eyes.
Bishowraj took his family to his brother’s place, farther up from the river’s edge.
It was the morning of Saturday, Sept. 28, and the rain would continue for another day, causing landslides and floods in areas surrounding Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. More than 200 people were dead in the worst flooding to hit the region in five decades. Over 10 inches of rainfall fell in the Kathmandu Valley in two days, nearly 20% of the monthly average.
The Bagmati River in Kathmandu inundated low-lying areas, damaging temporary shelters and forcing daily-wage squatters to seek safety away from the raging waters. Some of the urban dwellings were covered foot deep in mud and debris of broken tree limbs and damaged buildings.
By Monday, the sun was out and Bishowraj and his wife Sharmila went back to what remained of their home to try and salvage whatever they could. The damage was extensive and Sharmila tried hard to find some cooking utensils that were intact.
Elsewhere in the capital, earthmovers lifted parked vehicles out of the mud, and tried to flush the ground floors of the slime left by the receding floodwaters. Several highways leading to Kathmandu were damaged, causing traffic jams and disrupting supplies.
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