Kathmandu: A 91-year-old woman pulled alive from a mud-filled care home in Nepal has become a striking visual from the flash floods that have killed more than 1,200 people across the region.
An elderly man who also lived at the care home said the residents had little warning before the flood hit. We ran towards the higher ground, but around six or seven people could not make it,” he told a private news channel. A volunteer at the care home said local residents reached the facility around two hours after the flash floods struck.
Guna Maya Bohara was rescued from the Senior Citizens Welfare Foundation in Devighat, a riverside town in Nuwakot, after floodwaters swept through the area. Covered in mud from the neck down, she was found sitting in the scoop of a JCB excavator after surviving several hours in the flooded building. She was among the elderly residents who survived the disaster. Seven others at the care home were killed. The survivors were later flown to a temporary shelter in Kathmandu, where they are now receiving food, clothes, nursing care and medical treatment. “It was breakfast time when we saw the roof shaking. By then, floodwaters had moved downhill, leaving large amounts of silt across the town. Her story has emerged along with stories of residents who were swept away or trapped in buildings and tunnels.
