Presumed Dead in Nepal Floods, Elderly Woman Rescued Alive After 10 Days

Believing she had died in Nepal's devastating floods; the family of elderly woman Chandika Kumari Shrestha had already begun the ritual mourning process to honour her passing.

Ten days later, rescuers discovered her alive, trapped inside her collapsed home in the ravaged village of Betrawati, where she had survived in a narrow pocket of air amid the surrounding water and mud.

"The four-storey house was swept [away] by the floods and the house was left in the middle of a quicksand. While walking around it, we heard a voice 'save me,'" said police officer Mahendra Darnal.

In a rescue operation that lasted 45 minutes on Saturday, Darnal and his team located Shrestha in a confined space within the wreckage and transported her to an army hospital for treatment.

"I was in touch with the family and they had started the 11-day mourning period," Darnal said, underscoring just how close the family had come to burying her memory before her miraculous survival came to light.

Shrestha was among hundreds of people reported missing in Betrawati, one of the areas hit hardest by the floods in Nepal, where the landscape has been left blanketed in white deposits compacted almost like concrete. Recovery crews continue to pull scores of bodies from the debris.

The town's market and most of its residential buildings — some as tall as four storeys — were left almost entirely buried beneath the debris carried by a torrent that tore through the valley. The disaster has killed more than 1,300 people across Nepal, with thousands more still unaccounted for.

Rescue workers wearing hard hats have been seen digging through the wreckage with shovels, while others crawl through gaps in collapsed buildings, periodically blowing whistles in hopes of drawing a response from anyone still trapped and alive beneath the rubble.

Five days before Shrestha's rescue, 24 bodies were found in a decomposed state in Betrawati's market area, inside a building that had once housed a small shop, according to Darnal.