After spending five years working in Saudi Arabia, Narayan Prassan returned to his home in Nepal with savings, only to lose his house in the 2015 earthquake. He went abroad again, earned enough to rebuild his home and settled happily with his family.
“This flood has taken everything,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”
Rabi Kumar Thapa Magar, a hydropower worker who lost his wife, brother, sister-in-law and mother, said he identified his wife from a photo of the dead — but authorities had buried her body before the family could see it. A month after devastating floods swept through parts of Nepal, thousands are displaced like Prassan and rescuers continue searching for thousands others missing, including many believed trapped in six hydropower project tunnels. The disaster has left the government facing a long and costly recovery, with families confronting the loss of loved ones, homes and livelihoods. Prime Minister Balendra Shah used his first address to the U.N. “Climate change does not recognize borders.
Nepal’s disaster management agency said 1,453 bodies had been recovered and 5,644 people remained missing. Only 112 bodies had been handed over to relatives, while 1,333 were temporarily buried pending identification. In neighboring China, officials reported 261 foreign nationals among the missing.
“The disaster was not just a local tragedy, but a warning to the world,” Shah said. Glaciers and floods do not travel with stamps and passports,” he said. Laboratory officials declined to provide details, citing privacy concerns, but said experts from India, China, the United States, Singapore and South Korea were assisting with the work.
General Assembly on Thursday to highlight the flooding as a warning about the growing climate risks facing the Himalayan region. “I ask you today: Have we really heard that warning?
