Miraculous Nepal Rescue: Presumed Dead Woman Pulled Alive After 10 Days Under Rubble
Mourned Nepal woman found alive.
In a miraculous turn of events, rescue teams successfully extracted Chandika Kumari Shrestha alive from the debris of her collapsed home, a full 10 days after a catastrophic flood devastated the region. The 64-year-old woman was found trapped in a narrow air pocket, surrounded by heavy water and dense mud. The discovery came at a time when her family had already given up hope and begun traditional funerary mourning rites, assuming she had perished in the disaster.
The rescue unfolded on Saturday afternoon when an Armed Police Force team, led by Inspector Suman Kumar BK and local police officer Mahendra Darnal, was patrolling the disaster zone. While inspecting what remained of a four-storey residential building, searchers heard a faint cry for help uttering the words "save me" emerging from deep beneath the rubble. Personnel quickly initiated a precise, 45-minute extraction operation to clear compacted mud and debris before pulling Shrestha out from the upper floor of the buried structure.
Following her retrieval, authorities found the survivor covered in thick sludge and showing signs of severe exhaustion, though she was remarkably communicative. She was immediately evacuated via a military helicopter to the Nepali Army’s Maithili Barracks in Trishuli for initial triage and medical stabilization. Officials from the Prime Minister's Office later indicated that plans were underway to transfer her to an advanced hospital facility in Kathmandu for comprehensive medical monitoring and specialized treatment.
The catastrophic flash floods, which struck on August 26, are believed to have been triggered by a massive glacier collapse in the high Himalayas. The resulting deluge unleashed a torrent of water, rock, and ice down the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli river valleys, completely overwhelming low-lying settlements. The town of Betrawati was among the hardest hit, with entire market stretches and residential sectors buried under heavy sediment that quickly compacted into concrete-like deposits.
According to the national disaster management agency, the broader regional disaster has claimed the lives of at least 1,300 people, while thousands of others across Nepal remain missing or trapped. Despite the grim circumstances, recent days have seen a string of successful extractions by emergency crews, including the rescue of two Nepali hydropower workers and a Chinese national from flooded transit tunnels. The successful retrieval of Shrestha has provided a massive morale boost to search operations as teams continue to comb through the debris.
