In the final days of August 2026, a Himalayan glacier collapsed and sent a wall of water through villages near the Nepal-Tibet border, erasing communities in minutes and leaving nearly 3,000 people missing. Survivors arrived in Kathmandu with nothing — no shoes, no money, no family in many cases — and found refuge not in government shelters but in a Buddhist monastery opened by volunteers. In the space between catastrophe and recovery, ordinary people are doing the work that institutions have not, tending to the living while the dead remain uncounted beneath the mud.
Nepal flood survivors find refuge at monastery as thousands remain missing
Nearly 3,000 people missing; entire villages devastated with estimated three-quarters of some populations killed; survivors partially buried, orphaned children, and families completely displaced.