Video footage of Gunmaya Bohra, 97, sitting in the bucket of a mechanical digger, caked from head to toe in mud, has become one of the defining moments of Nepal’s devastating floods.
In the images that spread rapidly across social media, Ms Bohra sits silently as rescuers carry her through mud and debris. Her face, hair and clothes are coated in thick grey-brown sludge.
Four days after the disaster, The National tracked down Ms Bohra and her family at Kathmandu’s Bir Hospital, where she was recovering after being rescued from the flood-hit area of Kabilash in Nuwakot.
The elderly woman was resting in a hospital bed surrounded by relatives. Although she had escaped serious injury, she was too frail to speak.
For the first two or three days after her rescue, her family said she did not speak at all. “She was slightly traumatised,” her grandson, Rasik Bohra, told The National. “She didn’t say anything to us for two or three days. Now she is fine.”
But for Mr Bohra, the moment he discovered his grandmother had survived was overwhelming. “I was emotional,” he said. “I can’t express that feeling.”
That relief was followed by disbelief when images of Ms Bohra’s rescue began appearing on his phone. “When I scrolled the reel, I saw her,” he said. “Everyone is posting [about] her. I feel emotional. I feel happy, too.”
Yet the image of her being carried to safety in the digger bucket tells only part of the story.
Several members of the family and people close to them remain missing, Mr Bohra said. They include his maternal uncle and other relatives on his mother’s side, as well as his father’s friend.
He believes more than 50 people from the affected area could remain unaccounted for, although the scale of the destruction and the lack of reliable communication have made it difficult to establish an exact number. “It’s uncountable,” he said. “I don’t know how many people are missing.”
Eight hours in mud
Finding Ms Bohra was not straightforward. The search involved scouring patient lists and hospital records before she and her family could finally be located.
Mr Bohra, a student at Herald College Kathmandu who is studying for an MBA, was in Kathmandu when he learnt his grandmother’s community in Kabilash had been badly hit by the floods. He travelled to Devighat to search for her.
By the time he arrived, much of the area had been engulfed by mud, water and debris. Houses were destroyed and roads were impassable, making it difficult for relatives and rescue workers to reach people who might still be trapped. “There were so many houses lost and damaged,” Mr Bohra said.
With roads buried or washed away, heavy machinery had to be brought in to clear a path through the destruction.
Mr Bohra said his grandmother had been stuck in the mud for about eight or nine hours when the family noticed small movements. “She was shaking her head,” he said.
It was the first sign that she had survived.
Rescuers and relatives then worked for several hours to free her from the dense mud and wreckage.
Once freed, she used the digger that had cleared a route through the debris to escape.
Unable to reach her by ambulance, rescuers placed Ms Bohra inside a large metal bucket and carried her across the mud.
She was later taken to Kathmandu for treatment. Despite her age and the amount of time spent trapped, she has no significant injuries, her family said.
“Nothing happened to her, she is totally fine now,” Mr Bohra said. “She was very strong. At the age of 97, she was very strong.”
The government will cover her hospital expenses and doctors are preparing to discharge her, he added.
The rescue has brought relief to the family but their search has not ended.
Mr Bohra said several relatives and people from the community are still missing, with families struggling to receive information from areas cut off by the floods.
“There are so many people like me who are stuck,” he said. “I feel very sad for them. I wish that the rescue teams could go there as soon as possible.”
He said no relief organisation had directly approached his family to help with their search, although the government was covering Ms Bohra’s treatment.
The family must now work out where the 97-year-old will live after she leaves hospital, while communities across the flood-hit region face destroyed homes, damaged roads and missing relatives.
For Mr Bohra, the images of his grandmother’s rescue capture the relief and anguish of the disaster. “I feel happy … but I am very sad” too, he said.
Mr Bohra urged the international community not to see his grandmother’s rescue as the end of the story.
“We are in a very bad condition,” he said. “I would like to tell the world to come together and help Nepal. I just pray for them. I just pray for Nepal.”
