To escape the deadly flooding in Nepal, 8-year-old Zoyal Ghale fled to the nearby forest with his brother and classmates when the disaster struck, taking refuge by climbing up a tree. On Friday (August 28), he was reunited with his despairing mother, Matti Maya Tamang.
Zoyal’s 28-year-old mother, Matti Maya Tamang, told Reuters reporters that before their reunion, she feared both Zoyal and his brother had perished in the school during the flood. To everyone’s surprise, the two brothers ultimately survived, as Tamang had already found their youngest son who also survived.
When the flood hit the school on Wednesday, Zoyal was initially unable to clearly state his name to the rescue workers. By Thursday, with a broken right leg and multiple facial cuts, he was rescued by the Nepalese army and airlifted alone from the heavily affected Rasuwa region in the north.
Meanwhile, Tamang was moving between shelters and rescue centers, checking lists one by one, searching for her two missing children.
“At the fourth place, their names were still not on the list, and they were not there,” Tamang told Reuters. “At that point, I had come to terms with the fact that I had lost both my children. I could only cry, completely devastated. I had given up.”
UNICEF stated that at least 17,000 children in the flood-affected areas of Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading in the north of Kathmandu were impacted by the floods.
The organization added that they are working with the Nepalese government to register and confirm the children separated from their families, assisting in their reunification.
Tamang is considered one of the lucky survivors. In Nepal and Tibet, China, thousands have already perished or gone missing.
After several futile searches, Tamang was able to contact Reuters journalist Sahana Bajracharya on Thursday. Prior to this, the journalist team had encountered Zoyal at a small hospital in Nuwakot. In order to help him find his family, the reporters took photos of Zoyal with his consent and left their contact information.
Upon learning that Zoyal was safe and transferred to Kathmandu, Tamang could hardly believe it. “It sounded too unreal; I had given up,” she said. Earlier, she had found her other surviving son, and upon finding her elder son, she felt like she had been given a new life.
On Wednesday morning, the children were on a school bus headed to class. Shortly after, a glacier collapse triggered a massive landslide, destroying the entire area, flattening the community with swift currents and debris.
“I could see everything being washed away, thinking the children were also lost,” Tamang tried to go to the school, which was only a 15-minute drive away, but the school was destroyed, surrounded by mud and stones.
“You couldn’t tell where the school was, where the market was,” she said.
When journalists encountered Zoyal at a small hospital in Nuwakot on Thursday, no one knew the whereabouts of his family. The policeman who rescued him gave him two 10-rupee notes to convince him to go to the hospital.
Zoyal, with a broken right leg and facial wounds, remembered that during the school flood, “the sky suddenly turned very dark.” He immediately ran into the forest with friends to climb trees for shelter. When asked if he was scared, he shook his head and said, “No.”
On Friday, with the help of the journalists, Tamang traveled two hours outside Kathmandu to the hospital and finally stood by Zoyal’s bedside. His father, who works in Japan, was also on his way back.
The flood completely changed Rasuwa, but for this family, hope has been restored.
“He’s always a mischievous child,” Tamang said. “This isn’t his first broken bone.”