Nepal flood survivors grapple with trauma after escaping catastrophic Bhotekoshi disaster

On the morning of August 26, the Bhotekoshi river surged through Nepal's Rasuwa district without warning, swallowing the border settlement of Timure in black mud and water and erasing entire communities within moments. By the following evening, 389 bodies had been recovered, with hundreds still unaccounted for — a toll that speaks to how little time the living had to become survivors. Those who escaped did so by instinct alone, fleeing uphill into forests where they watched their world dissolve below them, sustained through the night by army helicopter drops and the uncertain mercy of which wa