{"text":[[{"start":10.36,"text":"Indra Kumari Dhakal has seen a lot in her 95 years of life in Nepal: floods, mudslides, earthquakes, civil war and political turmoil. But nothing prepared her for the wall of water that swept away her house this week, killing five members of her family."}],[{"start":26.16,"text":"“The water was so high it reached the sky,” Dhakal said of the disaster that engulfed a string of riverside settlements on and near Nepal’s border with China on Wednesday. “This flood was nothing like before . . . it took everything from us.”"}],[{"start":40.96,"text":"Chinese and Nepali authorities said that the torrent that roared down into the Bhote Koshi river valley after an ice and rock avalanche killed more than 580 people, with nearly 2,500, including over 500 foreigners, missing."}],[{"start":54.76,"text":"Nepali helicopters took Dhakal and other victims and survivors from some of the worst-affected areas to the Maithili Barracks in Bidur, a municipality north of the capital Kathmandu that has become a centre for rescue efforts."}],[{"start":68.2,"text":"“We are in a race to save lives,” Nepal’s interior minister Sudan Gurung told the FT during a visit to the area on Friday, as army rescue teams rushed survivors in stretchers off a stream of helicopters."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":81.56,"text":"Nepal is one of Asia’s poorest countries and the disaster has come as the biggest test yet of the new administration of Prime Minister Balendra Shah, who was elected in March after a bloody youth uprising toppled the previous government last year."}],[{"start":95.64,"text":"Shah’s government has deployed more than 15,000 army and police — who it says have rescued over 4,450 people — and insists it can handle immediate relief efforts on its own. Foreign ministry spokesperson Lok Bahadur Poudel Chhetri said on Friday that the country was declining offers of foreign assistance for search-and-rescue operations. “For now we don’t require such help,” Chhetri said."}],[{"start":120.68,"text":"Nepal’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority reported that up to 80 bridges and 40km of paved highway had been damaged or swept away."}],[{"start":130.16,"text":"The destruction has hampered efforts to reach survivors and deliver emergency supplies to remote communities in a country deeply vulnerable to natural calamities; last year a flash flood on the Bhote Koshi caused by the bursting of a glacial lake killed at least nine people."}],[{"start":146.26,"text":"Deepak KC, an army lieutenant colonel involved in the rescue operation in Bidur, said Wednesday’s flood was the country’s “worst disaster” since a 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people. “So many villages have been wiped out,” he said."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":161.92,"text":"Suraj Chaudhari, who was evacuated by helicopter from the hard-hit district of Rusawa, said he had narrowly escaped when disaster struck as he was working in a tunnel at a South Korean-led hydropower project."}],[{"start":174.12,"text":"“I was inside the tunnel when the flood came,” he said. “The water came all of a sudden with a huge bang, like a bomb exploding. There were 13 of us. Many of us ran uphill and saved our lives.”"}],[{"start":186.24,"text":"But another evacuee, Shiva Thapa, 48, said a brother-in-law who was working as a safety officer at the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project was still missing. Yonhap news agency reported on Friday that nine South Koreans who were working at the project were also unaccounted for."}],[{"start":202.44,"text":"“No one would have predicted the magnitude and the scale; this was definitely beyond one’s comprehension,” said Sudarshan Neupane, the country director for development charity WaterAid, who grew up in Rasuwa. “A lot of these communities are now cut off, and due to the topography, it is impossible for the government to reach some of these locations.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":221.72,"text":"The disaster, which destroyed China’s Gyirong border crossing, severed one of Nepal’s main trade links with its giant northern neighbour just as an economic recovery is threatened by higher fuel costs and a decline in tourism."}],[{"start":234.46,"text":"More than three-quarters of Nepal’s exports to China passed through Gyirong in 2024-25, according to customs data cited by the Nepal Economic Forum."}],[{"start":244.92,"text":"Officials also worry that tourism, a crucial source of foreign exchange for Nepal, will be hard hit. The flood disrupted routes used by Himalayan trekkers and climbers, as well as by Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims bound for sacred sites in Tibet."}],[{"start":258.68,"text":"Family members of the hundreds of Indian and foreign tourists who were on the pilgrimage route waited in Bidur for any information. Pradeep Pandit, who runs a tourism agency in Kathmandu, said he had flown to the area near the border searching for survivors and found settlements mostly razed."}],[{"start":274.52,"text":"“We could not see any hotels or the immigration building or the bridges. We only saw the banks of the river and stones,” Pandit said."}],[{"start":282.72,"text":"He said he had located 20 Indians in the area, but could only bring back one in his helicopter."}],[{"start":288.18,"text":"Many local people were waiting desperately for news of their loved ones."}],[{"start":291.88,"text":"Rusawa resident Tinzi Ghale said her brother and his entire family were missing, as were most of her sister’s family."}],[{"start":298.64,"text":"“I am waiting here for my sister’s daughter because the rescue team said she is alive,” said Ghale, 42, who was at her riverside home when the flood hit. “Everyone shouted ‘run, run.’ I ran and saved myself. Then, everything turned dark. I thought we were going to die that day. In a flash, everything was gone.”"}],[{"start":317.44,"text":"Additional reporting by Krishn Kaushik in Mumbai and cartography by Jana Tauschinski in London"}],[{"start":325.68,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1787964884_6555.mp3"}