Mother Reunited With 8-Year-Old Son Who Climbed Trees to Survive Nepal Floods

A Nepalese mother has been reunited with her eight-year-old son after he survived a devastating flash flood by running into a forest and climbing trees to escape the rushing water.

Zoyal Ghale was separated from his family when catastrophic floods and a landslide struck northern Nepal on Wednesday. His mother, Matti Maya Tamang, had feared that both of her sons had died after she searched several shelters and collection points without finding their names.

Zoyal was eventually found alive and airlifted from the badly affected Rasuwa district to a hospital in neighbouring Nuwakot. He had suffered a broken leg and cuts to his face.

Zoyal had been at school with his brother when the disaster struck.

He recalled that everything suddenly became dark as floodwaters and debris swept through the area. He ran from the school into a forest with a friend and climbed into trees to escape the torrent.

Despite the terrifying circumstances, the boy reportedly told Reuters that he was not afraid.

When rescuers found him, Zoyal was injured but conscious. He was holding two 10-rupee notes that police officers had given him to persuade him to go with them to hospital.

While Zoyal was being treated, his mother was desperately searching for him and his brother.

Tamang, 28, moved between shelters and collection centres looking for information but repeatedly found no trace of her children. At one point, she said, she had begun to accept that both boys might have died.

Her search changed when Reuters journalist Sahana Bajracharya encountered Zoyal at a small hospital in Nuwakot on Thursday.

The journalist left her telephone number with the hospital after speaking with the boy, hoping his family could be located.

Tamang later obtained the number and contacted Bajracharya. She was told that Zoyal was alive and had been transferred to Kathmandu.

On Friday, Tamang travelled to the Kathmandu hospital where her son was receiving treatment.

After days of frantic searching, mother and son were finally reunited.

Tamang had already found her younger son alive, meaning both of her children survived the disaster.

The family was among the fortunate survivors of a catastrophe that has devastated communities across northern Nepal and neighbouring Tibet.

The flash floods were triggered after part of a glacier near Langtang Lirung collapsed, sending ice and rock into the valley and triggering a massive landslide and surge of water and debris. Entire communities were swept away and vital infrastructure was destroyed.

UNICEF said at least 17,000 children have been affected across Nepal’s Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading districts and that it is working with the government to identify children separated from their families and reunite them with relatives.

The wider disaster has killed at least 580 people, while about 2,500 remain missing across Nepal and China’s Tibet region, according to the latest Reuters reporting.

For Tamang, however, the overwhelming disaster has produced one precious moment of relief: after believing she might never see her children again, she was able to hold her surviving son once more.

“After I found the elder one, I felt my life was back,” Tamang said.