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🇵🇾 Paraguay /Disasters & Emergencies

About 600 Children Still Missing in Nepal Nine Days After Floods

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Newswire Named sources Ongoing story
  • About 600 children remain unaccounted for in Nepal's Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts nine days after floods struck, although authorities cannot yet determine how many survived.
  • The floods hit children traveling to school, waiting for buses or still at home, while schools and school buses suffered extensive damage.
  • Twelve schools were destroyed, 22 education workers remain missing, and UNICEF estimates that at least 17,000 children were affected across three districts.

About 600 children are still missing in central Nepal, nine days after a devastating flood swept through communities in Rasuwa and Nuwakot. Education officials are still trying to determine how many survived, as destroyed communications and displaced families make verification difficult.

Preliminary figures put the number of unaccounted-for students at about 280 in Rasuwa and between 300 and 350 in Nuwakot. In Bidur alone, around 250 children have not been located. “In some cases we have located surviving parents who cannot find their children, and in others, surviving students are searching for their parents,” said Navaraj Sapkota, an inspector with the municipal education unit.

The flood struck on the morning of Aug. 26, catching children as they traveled to class, waited for school buses or remained at home. At Neelakantha Secondary School in rural Uttargaya, 200 of the 496 students are still unaccounted for, along with four school workers. Children who had reached the school were evacuated to higher ground, but two teachers, a nurse and an early-childhood education worker were hit by the flood.

In some cases we have located surviving parents who cannot find their children, and in others, surviving students are searching for their parents.

· Navaraj SapkotaThe municipal education official described the family separations caused by the floods.

At Uttargaya Public School in Bidur, both school buses were swept away. Rescuers saved 30 children from one bus, while education officials continued to establish what happened to the rest of the school's 362 students. Twelve schools were completely destroyed, and 22 education centers were damaged in Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading. Twenty-two teachers and education workers also remain missing.

UNICEF estimates that at least 17,000 children were affected by the floods and is working with Nepalese authorities to identify children separated from their families and support reunification. Classes remain suspended in the worst-hit areas, and surviving schools are being used as shelters by families who lost their homes.

Some children were on their way, others were waiting for school transport and many were still at home.

· Madhav LamichhaneThe school director described where students were when the flood struck.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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