Family Trapped in Nepal’s Viral Green House Recalls Escape from Floodwaters

The green house that appeared to withstand Nepal’s raging floodwaters became a viral image, but inside, six people were fighting to survive. Laxmi Pandey, one of the residents, said the family was trapped during the Aug. 26 flash floods along the Trishuli River in Nuwakot.

Pandey and her husband had been at their shop, about five minutes from home, when the flooding began. They ran back to warn her mother-in-law and rescue her and their daughter. Her mother-in-law initially believed the water would not reach them, but the old bridge then broke and floodwaters surged in from above.

With escape impossible, Pandey’s husband, father-in-law and a neighbour joined the others inside the house. The group retreated upstairs as water rose. Pandey said the force of the flood shook the house like the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, while the collapse of a neighbouring home made survival seem unlikely.

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There seemed to be no chance of survival. But a few neighbours risked their own lives and came together to rescue us.

Neighbours eventually came together to rescue them. All six people survived unharmed. Pandey described the rescue as an act of divine grace and said the family felt they had been given a second life.

The wider disaster has killed 939 people, while 3,925 remain missing, including 592 foreign nationals, according to Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority. Rescue operations continue in Rasuwa, Nuwakot and other districts. The Indian Embassy in Nepal has asked relatives to help identify the remains of Indian citizens through photographs or DNA profiles.

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Now we all feel very lucky. It is by God's grace. Those four or five people came like manifestations of God to save us. We are thanking God right now. We have been granted a second life.