‘Our Son Will Return Alive’: Parents Hold Onto Hope 13 Days After Nepal Flood
Participants attend a prayer gathering in Butwal, Nepal, wishing for the safe return and rescue of Anita Puri, a naib subba who has been missing since the flood.
BUTWAL, Nepal — Thirteen days have passed. The phone has not rung. There has been no word from their son.
Still, Surendra and Sabitra Belbase of Thada-Amarai in Sitganga Municipality-3, Arghakhanchi, refuse to give up hope.
They are waiting for their 26-year-old son, Subodh Belbase, to come home.
Subodh, an engineer at the Trishuli-3B Hydropower Project, has been out of contact since catastrophic flooding swept through the Bhotekoshi River corridor. His parents have traveled, searched and waited, clinging to the possibility that he may still be alive.
“He will return alive,” they say.
Subodh is the only son of Surendra and Sabitra, who have two children. He earned a degree in civil engineering in India and had worked in the hydropower sector for the past two years. He had hoped to gain professional experience before pursuing higher education in the United States.
“We worked very hard and made many sacrifices to send our son to India to study civil engineering,” Surendra said. “His plan was to gain experience through work and then go to the United States for higher studies.”
Subodh has one older sister.
A Call That Never Came
Subodh was in Kathmandu through the night of Aug. 25, according to his family. He spoke with his mother by phone and said he would call again the following afternoon.
That was their last conversation.
Flooding struck the Bhotekoshi area on Aug. 26, and Subodh’s phone became unreachable. His family began searching immediately.
Surendra traveled from Parbat, while Sabitra traveled from Arghakhanchi to Kathmandu and then to Rasuwa. Family members searched in Kathmandu and Rasuwa and later traveled as far as Chitwan and Nawalparasi, fearing that floodwaters might have carried him downstream.
They received no information.
But the reported rescue of Sanjay Sah and Kabir Maharjan, who were found alive inside a tunnel at the Trishuli-3A Hydropower Project, strengthened the family’s belief that others might also have survived.
“The news that they came out of the tunnel alive gave us hope,” the family said. “We believe our son will also be found alive.”
Geeta Bhatta, deputy mayor of Sitganga Municipality, said the municipality had repeatedly urged the government to intensify the search for Subodh. She said the local government was prepared to provide every possible form of assistance.
While Sitganga had received no reports of other missing residents, eight people from Arghakhanchi district remained unaccounted for, Bhatta said.
Another Family Waits
In Butwal, the family of 37-year-old Kishor Neupane Chhetri has endured the same uncertainty.
Kishor, a mechanical overseer at the Rasuwagadhi Hydropower Project, has been missing since the flooding. He regularly traveled between Butwal and Rasuwa for work.
A permanent resident of Bagnaskali Rural Municipality-5 in Palpa, Kishor had moved his family to a newly built home in Thapapath, Devsiddha Chowk, in Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City-11, about a year ago.
He is survived by his wife, Anju, their 15-year-old daughter, Karuna, and their 7-year-old son, Atis. Both children study in Butwal.
Kishor worked a schedule of 15 days on duty and 15 days off. He returned to Rasuwa on Aug. 22 after completing his leave. At about 8 a.m. on Aug. 26, he spoke with his wife and children for the last time.
About two hours later, Anju learned that the Bhotekoshi flood had swept through the area around the Rasuwagadhi Hydropower Project. From Butwal, she called Kishor’s father, Bal Bahadur, in Palpa, in tears.
Bal Bahadur, a retired teacher, and Kishor’s mother, Tika Kumari, came to Butwal after learning that their son was missing. They remain there, waiting for news.
The rescue of people from the tunnel renewed their hope.
Ramchandra Chhetri, chairman of Ward 11 in Butwal, said Bal Bahadur provided a DNA sample at Lumbini Provincial Hospital in Butwal. Relatives and neighbors who have visited the family say they continue to hope Kishor will return safely.
“Even amid the grief and anxiety, we still hope that our son will come home,” Bal Bahadur said.
Anita Puri’s Family Searches
Anita Puri of Tahatim, Ruru Kshetra Rural Municipality-5 in Gulmi, has also remained unaccounted for since the flood.
Puri, a non-gazetted first-class officer, or naib subba, at the Rasuwa Customs Office, was resting in her rented room when the flooding struck. She had not gone to work that day because she was feeling unwell during menstruation, family members said.
She disappeared from her room after the flooding.
Puri had joined the Rasuwa Customs Office only a month earlier. She had previously worked in Dang and Bardiya.
Her family last spoke with her on the night of Aug. 25. Seven people from Gulmi district have been reported missing in connection with the disaster.
Puri was pursuing a master’s degree in sociology at Butwal Multiple Campus. Jeevanarayan Adhikari, head of her department, said the campus had urged the government to intensify efforts to find her.
Puri had visited the campus about a month earlier to submit her third-semester examination form, Adhikari said. Her exams were scheduled to begin Aug. 31.
She had planned to travel to Butwal on the evening of Aug. 26 to take the exams. That morning, she posted a video on TikTok about missing home, Adhikari said. She has not been in contact with family or friends since.
Hundreds of Families Await Answers
Subodh, Kishor and Anita belong to different families and districts. But their relatives are asking the same question: Where are they?
The Disaster Management Division under Lumbini Province’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said 245 people from the province’s 12 districts had been reported out of contact after the Bhotekoshi flooding. Many had traveled to Rasuwa and Nuwakot for work and had not contacted their families.
Only eight of the 245 people initially reported missing had been reached, according to the province’s emergency operations center.
The figures are more than government statistics to the families waiting at home. Each number represents someone’s son, daughter, husband, wife, father or mother — and a household waiting for a call, a message or confirmation.
Search-and-rescue efforts were hampered in the early days by remote terrain, poor weather and a lack of modern equipment, according to relatives and local officials. Families say the possibility that people may have survived inside project tunnels or beneath debris has made delays in the rescue operation even more painful.
The Nepali Army and project-based rescue teams are continuing the search. But for relatives, each passing day deepens the uncertainty.
They have urged the government to determine the condition of their loved ones, whatever it may be. Not knowing whether they are alive, trapped, injured or dead has left families in prolonged grief and psychological distress.
Nepal Police said that as of Monday, 1,355 bodies had been recovered in multiple districts following the disaster.
The largest number, 363, was recovered in Chitwan. Authorities reported 223 bodies in Nawalparasi East, 221 in Nawalparasi West, 196 in Nuwakot and 169 in Rasuwa. Police also reported recovering 75 bodies in Gorkha, 70 in Dhading and 38 in Tanahun.
Forensic and police teams have been collecting DNA samples and carrying out identification procedures. Authorities said they had collected 2,570 DNA samples — 1,280 from recovered bodies and 1,290 from relatives.
Authorities said 1,114 bodies had been identified and processed through the required legal and safety procedures. Nepal Police said details and physical descriptions of 1,311 unidentified bodies had been uploaded to its official website to help families identify their relatives.
Nearly 5,000 people remain out of contact or missing after the devastating flood, Nepal Police said. Authorities have deployed 7,912 police personnel to affected areas for search-and-rescue operations, relief distribution and body management.
For Surendra and Sabitra, however, the growing number of recovered bodies and missing people cannot answer the only question that matters.
They want news of Subodh. Thirteen days after his phone went silent, they are still waiting. And they are still hoping that their son will return alive.
This coverage was made possible by a grant from URL Collective, a nonprofit supporting local, diverse media.