64-Year-Old Woman Rescued Alive After 11 Days Trapped Under Debris in Nepal Floods

Nuwakot, Nepal:
In a remarkable rescue operation amid Nepal’s devastating flood disaster, 64-year-old Chandrika Shrestha was found alive and rescued from her debris-buried home in Betrawati, Nuwakot, days after the area was devastated by catastrophic flooding and landslides.

Shrestha was discovered by a nine-member Armed Police Force rescue team while personnel were clearing debris from the affected settlement in Bidur Municipality-10. According to reports, rescuers found her unconscious on an upper floor of a four-storey house that had been largely buried under thick mud and debris.

The rescue came roughly 10 days after the disaster struck on August 26, when a massive surge of water, ice, rock and mud swept through parts of northern Nepal following a glacial and rock collapse near the Nepal-China border. The resulting floods and landslides devastated several districts, destroying homes, roads, bridges and hydropower infrastructure.

Rescue personnel provided Shrestha with immediate assistance before she was airlifted by helicopter to a Nepali Army facility in Trishuli for medical treatment. Authorities said she could be transferred to Kathmandu for further care if required.

Her rescue has offered a rare moment of hope in one of Nepal’s worst recent natural disasters. Search teams are continuing operations in several flood-hit areas, particularly around damaged hydropower projects where hundreds of workers are still believed to be missing.

The rescue of Shrestha came on the same day that another survivor, Chinese national Luhaitao, was pulled alive from a tunnel at the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project. He had reportedly been trapped approximately 225 metres inside the tunnel and was subsequently taken for medical evaluation.

The disaster has caused a massive humanitarian crisis across the region. Latest reports put the death toll in Nepal and China at more than 1,300, while thousands of people remain missing. Search and rescue teams from Nepal and several other countries continue to work through unstable terrain and heavily damaged infrastructure in an effort to locate survivors.

The survival of Shrestha after being trapped beneath the debris for so many days has renewed hopes that more people could still be found alive as rescue operations continue across the affected areas.

Vanity Stardom will continue to track the Nepal flood rescue operations and bring verified updates as they emerge.