A Journalist's Account: Watching His Village Vanish in an Instant

The author, a journalist for The Kathmandu Post, recounts the harrowing experience of learning his village, Sole Bazaar, had been obliterated by a flash flood. While on his way to work, his wife's panicked call conveyed the devastating news: the Trishuli River had flooded, and Sole Bazaar, along with Betrawati, was gone.

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There’s been a flood in the Trishuli. Something’s happened to Sole Bazaar and Betrawati, people are saying there’s nothing left. Everyone’s out on the road. There are videos of them panicking.

Initially, the author struggled to believe the report. Sole is his childhood home, a place he knows intimately. He couldn't fathom how such a disaster could strike a settlement situated so high above the river, especially without any prior warning of unusually heavy rainfall. The river had never reached that high in living memory, making the news seem impossible.

As he opened a news site, a headline confirming a massive flood in the Trishuli sent a chill down his spine. Attempts to contact family and friends in Sole Bazaar proved futile; phones were either not ringing or calls were going unanswered. This silence intensified his fear and sense of helplessness.

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I just heard too, dai. I can’t get through to anyone. Not Mummy, not Buwa, not my uncle, my aunt, nobody’s phone is even ringing.

Upon finally reaching a relative, the grim confirmation came: "There's nothing left in the village. Most of the people are gone." The author's world shattered as he grappled with the reality that everyone he knew and loved in Sole, his extended family and community, had been swept away. The once familiar lanes and roads of his village had vanished in an instant, leaving behind an unimaginable void.

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There’s nothing left in the village. Most of the people are gone.