Devighat market has been left buried in mud and rubble after the flood, forcing surviving residents to search through the destruction for belongings and begin again.
Bhagwati Khatiwada stood in front of the ruins of her home on Saturday, tears filling her eyes as she searched in vain for anything left behind by a devastating flood that buried her family’s stationery shop and destroyed much of Devighat market.
Until just days earlier, the 50-year-old had lived in the house with her 54-year-old husband, Meen Kumar Khatiwada. Their stationery shop was also there, where their days began and ended.
When the Nepal Khabar team reached the area on Saturday, Bhagwati had returned to see whether anything could be recovered. She tried to retrieve belongings but found nothing. The stationery shop had already been buried under mud.
As she looked at the wreckage, she recalled the morning the flood struck.
Bhagwati and Meen Kumar were preparing breakfast at around 8:45 a.m. last Wednesday when police issued a public announcement over loudspeakers warning: “A massive flood is coming from the Rasuwa side.”
Bhagwati initially thought it would probably be like the floods that came every monsoon. But panic soon spread through Devighat market.
The couple left their food, belongings and home behind and ran uphill to save their lives.
“We left everything and ran,” Bhagwati recalled. “Right before our eyes, the flood swept away houses. It swept away the market. It swept away the concrete bridge. And as we watched, we even saw four or five people being carried away by the flood.”
The flood left Devighat market almost unrecognisable. Mud covered the area where a marketplace had stood, while heaps of rubble marked the sites of shops. Sludge, stones, wood and debris covered places where people had once walked.
Tree branches were lodged against house walls and electric wires hung loosely. Some shutters had been twisted out of shape, while in some places mud had filled houses up to the first floor.
Grief-stricken residents stood silently among what remained of their homes. Some pulled out clothes, others searched for important documents, while others cleared mud in the hope of finding something that could be salvaged.
Bhagwati was among them, but she found nothing.
Her two sons are abroad and had called their parents, telling them not to panic. But after watching the work of a lifetime being washed away, Bhagwati said she could not find peace of mind.
With tears in her eyes, she said: “We have to start everything again from zero. People have lost their lives. We are fortunate that we survived. That is the biggest thing.”
Despite losing everything, Bhagwati said she could draw some relief from having survived the disaster.
For now, she and Meen Kumar are staying at a relative’s house in Battar.
