I was visiting Kathmandu for the first edition of NDTV's World Anviksha: Ideas Across Borders summit, which was to focus on India-Nepal relations. I was supposed to spend two days here, and was pretty excited to meet the 'Mahanayak' of Nepali cinema, Rajesh Hamal, who is often called the 'Amitabh Bachchan' of Nepal. I was to be in conversation with him during one of the sessions.
I landed in Kathmandu and was preparing for the summit when, at around 11.30 am, a friend, who is a Nepali journalist, told me that a major landslide had hit the country. I wasn't sure. I thought there must have been a small incident somewhere in the hills. But in another hour or so, as more information came in, I was convinced it was bigger than what I was thinking. My reporter's instincts told me that I should go to the ground and see things firsthand. I spoke to my office in Noida back in India and told them I wanted to head to the affected area.
My cameraperson, Pooja Arya, and I had to convince our local driver to take us to the closest point to the flood. He refused initially, but eventually agreed after much coaxing. It was pouring as we left Kathmandu. The drive to Nuwakot was expected to take three hours.
We had no TV cameras with us since no field equipment was required for the summit. All I had was my phone, as did my cameraperson. As the rains intensified, the army barricading the turn to Nuwakot indicated that the tragedy was perhaps bigger than what we anticipated.
We met locals. The first woman I met took me to the first floor of her house and said, "I lived on the ground floor, and that's submerged now." The area had bad connectivity. We quickly shot videos and eyewitness accounts to send to the Delhi office. The challenge was the rain and the darkness. The debris, mud, and silt made it more difficult to move ahead.
Even so, NDTV was the first foreign media to be on Ground Zero in Nepal on August 26. Drenched and with our phones alerting us that water had entered the devices, we continued reporting until late into the night at Nuwakot.
That night, I met a young couple at a tea shop when we took a pit stop to have some water. Their house was inundated, and they had been separated from their family. I recorded my conversation with them, and they promised to take me to their home, Trishuli, the next morning.
Day 2
We were prepared to sleep in the car till sunrise, but our phone batteries were dying, and we desperately needed dry clothes. So we drove back three hours to Kathmandu, changed, and picked up TV live telecast equipment. The next morning, we headed back with the same couple, who had spent the night at the tea shop.
All the major roads were washed away. They took us through a kuccha path covered in grass and mud, and with slippery slopes. Thankfully, we had a brave local driver who knew the terrain very well. It took another hour from Bidhur to climb up. Again, NDTV was the first channel to reach the iconic Trishuli bazar. Everything was submerged. Only a single, green-coloured house was standing, which has since gone viral and has been hailed as an architectural wonder.
As we were shooting there, our driver pointed to a man and said, "Meet him, he saved people from this green house." I recorded a candid conversation with him. I also met a landlord who had five houses in Trishuli bazaar. All of them had been reduced to debris. No clothes to wear, no food to eat, he broke down helplessly.
I met two shopkeepers of Indian origin. Both had lost their shops. One had lost his wife and son as well. Another shopkeeper told us that he clung to a banana tree to save himself. He still couldn't sleep because his neighbour's son kept asking for help.
"Uncle, bacha lo" (uncle, save me). But he just couldn't hold on to him; his fingers slipped, and the boy was gone.
Connectivity remained a challenge here, too. We decided to move ahead and go to the Mansarovar road to get a sense of what actually happened there.
Once again, NDTV was the first media crew to reach the area. We filed reports from there. On the way, we saw a rescue team digging out bodies from the riverbed. The flash floods had demolished a hillock, which had breached the road, washing it away. We gathered all our reports and rushed to a connectivity point in Bidhur to send our stories. Since these areas had no place left to spend the night, we had to again head back to Kathmandu to charge our equipment.
Day 3
There was a second flood alert from China. We rushed back to Trishuli to get a sense of how prepared the victims were for this new alert. On our way, we saw the army helipad, and families waiting anxiously, expecting that their dear ones would walk out of the helicopters. While Trishuli was deserted, the victims' families waiting for relief had moved to higher reaches as a precaution. It was like a ghost town; there was debris all around, and the houses that were intact were locked.
I met an old woman, Maiya Tamang, who had decided not to leave her house. "Let fate decide for us. I can't take my bedridden, sick husband anywhere. He can't move. We survived flash floods. Let's see what this flood will do," she said to me. It was painful to hear this. Since the network was an issue, we once again drove back to Bidhur, which was an hour away, to send our reports.
At Bidhur, we met a bunch of young volunteers who were buying groceries nearby. They requested that we help them out with our vehicle. They wanted to reach a school where 100 people had taken shelter and had no food or water. We agreed. We loaded their stuff and started driving up again to the rescue shelter. By then, the sun had set, and it was pitch dark when we reached there. Electricity still hadn't been restored in these areas.
Upon entering the school, I was told there was a 14-year-old survivor who had faced it all. Young Swastik smiled when I said 'hello' to him. I could see injuries on his forehead, arms, and legs. He said, "Yes, I'll speak on camera. I can't forget that, it's like a bad dream." He told me that his sister, who was six years old, had survived, too, though she suffered a broken knee. He picked her up and got her to me. Little Swastika smiled and asked for my name. Before I could ask her anything, she hit me with a barrage of questions like how many children I had, how old I was, where I was from, and what my cameraperson's name was.
The three of us sat in the dark and spoke at length about what happened that day, how their school teacher saved them and pulled them out of the debris, how they saw other kids being washed away, how Swastik wanted to be a big footballer when he grew up. Their parents, luckily, were away in Gosaikunda that day. It was only the next day that they managed to reach them.
With my heart full and remembering my own children back home, I headed back to Kathmandu that night.
Day 4
By now, my colleagues had arrived and spread out across the affected areas. I had already filed exclusive reports from there. Being the first TV journalist on the ground from day one, I decided to move towards Rasuwa. My driver was not happy. He said there was no road. I insisted, "Let's find out." The government had been saying that an alternate route had been arranged for relief workers. So we decided to give it a try.
We started moving towards Rasuwa, not knowing where to go. At every juncture, we stopped and asked for suggestions for routes. This went on till we reached a narrow road that went up a mountain. A few bikers coming down warned us, "This is the road to Rasuwa, but it will take eight hours. If your vehicle isn't a four-wheeler and your driver isn't experienced, don't go."
We were equipped both ways. But we were not really prepared for that long, dangerous, terrifying drive. With just two bottles of water and no supplies, we thought we would reach soon and manage. But no, with heavy rains and a dangerous climb, the drive just got longer. There was no network. I couldn't speak to the office or back home. We kept moving till 10 pm. Finally, we reached a small town, Kalika. It was immersed in darkness. We needed a place to spend the night. A small tea shop was kind enough to give us a room.
NDTV again was the first media network in the world to reach Rasuwa.
Day 5
It was a long night of heavy downpour. And with no electricity to charge our phones, it only seemed longer and scarier. At last, dawn broke, and we were out. The first local we met while moving early morning towards Betrawati bazar said that since 4.30 am, none of them had slept. It had been a scary night with loud thunderstrikes.
While bringing the first exclusive pictures of Betrawati bazar, I realised that the magnitude of this tragedy could not be mapped or accounted for. It was beyond imagination. I met a woman who lived near Betrawati and was a seamstress. She couldn't hold her tears as she spoke to me. "My house is intact. My husband is fine. But I can't live here. My house is vibrating with the force of the river flow. My neighbours are washed away. Houses gone. How can I live alone here?"
The Betrawati bazar has been reduced to rubble, with the fierce Bhot Koshi flowing beside it. The roar of the river was so loud that we couldn't speak to each other without screaming.
Our next stop was a school, which was now serving as a shelter and was home to 100 more children rescued. The school principal is their caretaker now; many have been orphaned in the flash floods. While they were attending school, their parents and home were swept away.
We then headed towards Dunche, and later to the China-Tibet border, from where the destruction descended on Nepal. The drive was a challenge again: long, mountainous, winding roads, before we reached 12 Modi Sadak.
And then came another first for NDTV. We became the first media crew to reach the closest accessible point to the Nepal-Tibet border and document the destruction in the last settlements of Nepal, Syaphrubesi and Timure Bazaar. NDTV, again, was the only network to reach Nepal's farthest affected frontier during this crisis. The objective was simple: to show the true scale of the tragedy Nepal was enduring.
Day 6
We stayed the night at Dunche. It was much more comfortable than the previous night in Kalika. Dunche is a small town in the mountains, close to a national park, so small hotel rooms were easily available. The only challenge was electricity. But the locals never complained about their hardships. They welcomed us with a smile. Our hotel owners, a couple, prepared food for us in a dark kitchen, with just one oil lamp.
The morning was simple. Sorties of helicopters woke us up, and we rushed to the helipad. Recovered bodies were being ferried from Syaphrubesi and Timure, while some relief material was also taken to air-drop to the villages that had been cut off due to the floods.
I met children and young men who, after six days, were rescued and brought back to Dunche. They told us about the fateful morning and also the horror of debris and the stench of dead bodies buried beneath it. Tough times have made them tougher. No tears, just a resignation to reality.
We then decided to move and trek to the dead end of the Nepal-Tibet road, which led to Syaphrubesi, then Timure bazar, and then the Tibet border. We reached the last point, being the only media to bring in those close visuals of the massive destruction that hit Nepal from Tibet. Bridges and roads washed away. Police posts, customs offices, hotels, and restaurants, all submerged. At the dead end was the Chilime hydro project tunnel, where we could see rescue workers and disaster management officials working relentlessly to open the tunnel. We saw helicopters getting the equipment and generators down.
(The author is a Contributing Editor and senior anchor with NDTV India)
