Nepali Laborer Survives Flash Flood by Clinging to Mango Tree

A 24-year-old Nepali laborer survived being swept away by a devastating flash flood after clinging to a mango tree, as the death toll from the disaster near the Nepal-Tibet border rose to at least 475. Bibek Kumal was digging a toilet pit in Bidur, downstream from the worst-hit Rasuwa district, when the torrent struck on Wednesday, August 26, 2026.

Kumal was working outside a newly constructed house when he heard a hissing sound. His four coworkers, standing above the five-foot-deep pit, shouted for him to run. By the time he scrambled out, they had already fled. "I started running. Then a wall of water came thundering down as if it was an earthquake," Kumal said from his hospital bed at Kathmandus National Trauma Centre, where his brother Dinesh sat by his side. The force of the water, mud, and debris carried him downstream, but he managed to reach and hold onto a mango tree. "Luckily I was stuck up in a mango tree. Had there been no mango tree, I would have been washed away to death," he stated. From his refuge, he watched helplessly as the house where he had been working disappeared into the current. Police eventually rescued him, and he was treated for injuries to his right...