BETTIAH, India – Neyaz Miya and Mehadi Hassan were midway through their workdays when the flash floods devastated Syafrubesi, a market town near the Nepal-Tibet border. Miya was adjusting a kitchen handle in a half-built home higher up the hill, while Hassan was securing a bed bracket on the ground floor of the Ganesh Hotel. In an instant, the structures they had helped construct were swept away by the August 26 deluge.
The disaster has left more than 1,200 bodies recovered and at least 4,000 people still missing, with over 13,000 rescued. Miya, 34, recalls the initial terror: a deafening roar followed by trembling ground and dark clouds. He grabbed his phone and slippers and ran uphill with five or six others. Hassan, positioned lower on the slope, fled without grabbing anything, scrambling up a narrow path to safety roughly 60 meters above the road.
Both men eventually reunited with about 60 to 70 other survivors on the hill. They watched in horror as the multi-storey hotels where they had worked—including the Red Panda, Garden Hotel, Buddha Hotel, and Sunrise Hotel—were swallowed by the mud and water.
“The town was gone in a blink,” Miya said from his home in Turhapatti village in Bihar, India, just across the border. He estimates that only a few hundred of Syafrubesi’s 2,271 residents likely survived, categorizing them as those who were out of town, those who managed to run from work, or those living at higher elevations.
Miya and Hassan are among the survivors, but three close colleagues from their village did not make it: Arman Ansari, his son Salman Alam, and friend Shibu Alam, along with Samir Ansari and Mukhtar Ansari. The group had left Turhapatti early that morning, waking at 4 or 5 am for a 7 am shift. While the men headed to construction sites, the two teenagers remained in their rented one-room space, waiting for Arman to return at 11 am for a meal of meat bhaat (rice with meat).
When the floodwaters, which took half an hour to recede, surged through the town, Hassan believed Arman was behind him. However, when he and Miya regrouped uphill, the other three men were nowhere to be found. The survivors later located Salman and Shibu, terrified and crying on the hill. Salman was inconsolable, searching for his father.
After helicopters airlifted the critically injured, Miya, Hassan, and the boys walked back down into the debris to search for the missing. They found only sludge and lost Miya’s masonry tools, valued at 80,000 Nepali rupees ($530). Although their rented room on the slope survived, army personnel ordered survivors away from riverside tenements due to fears of further flooding. The group spent the night in a government school, eating daal bhat and sleeping under tarpaulins.
By August 28, the survivors traveled to Kathmandu and then took an SUV 290km to Birgunj on the India-Nepal border before crossing on foot and boarding buses back to Bihar.
The tragedy highlights the deep economic ties between the two nations. Turhapatti is one of thousands of villages along the 1,715km open border where migration is common due to wage disparities. While carpenters and masons earn 600-700 rupees daily in India, they can earn around 900 rupees in Nepal. This drive for income has led hundreds of men from Turhapatti to work in Nepal, Kashmir, and various Indian cities, as well as the Gulf region.
For the families left behind, the loss is catastrophic. Arman’s wife, Sahrun Khatun, clings to a phone call made two hours before the flood, during which Arman mentioned he was expecting wages on September 1. Their son Salman suffers from severe trauma, stating, “The moment I close my eyes, I feel the flood is coming for me.”
Mukhtar’s family has been scouring the internet and hospitals for news. His eldest son, Osama, submitted DNA samples after a week of waiting. The financial strain is acute; Osama sends $63 monthly, but his mother now requires urgent eye surgery that has been delayed.
Samir Ansari, the youngest of five migrant brothers, was working on the Ganesh Hotel project, which was just three days from completion. His father, Hasmuddin Miya, recalled Samir’s last phone call the evening prior, where he mentioned moving to another site.
With hope fading, the families of Arman, Samir, and Mukhtar are preparing for a bhoj, a traditional funeral feast. Meanwhile, survivors Miya and Hassan are seeking new employment in Nepal’s plains, vowing never to return to the hills. “My whole body shivers at the thought of going there,” Hassan said.
Heartbreaking accounts of the survivors. How do governments prevent workers from taking such dangerous risks for better pay?
The wage gap drives these brave workers across the border. It is tragic that such disparity leads to so much suffering.