Patna: In Lala Chhapra village of East Champaran, the wait for a phone call has turned into a nightmare. Since devastating flash floods swept through parts of Nepal, one family has been clinging to the hope that six of its members — five women and a two-year-old girl — may still be found alive.The missing include Manati Devi, wife of Budhan Sah (60), his daughters Asha Kumari, Rupa Kumari and Sandhya Kumari (28), and Sandhya’s two-year-old daughter Ayushi Kumari. The family has been unable to contact them since floods struck the Betrawati region, where they were staying.For the past four years, Nepal had been home to Budhan and his family. He earned a living by buying and selling scrap and doing labour work while living in a rented house in Batar.Manati had recently returned to Nepal after visiting her village in Adapur block in Raxual and offering prayers. Sandhya, who ran a small business in Trishuli, had gone to Batar with Ayushi to meet her mother and celebrate Raksha Bandhan with her brother. An ordinary family visit suddenly turned into a desperate fight for survival.When the flood struck, Budhan and his sons Suraj and Sajan were away in a hilly area to buy scrap. A sudden surge of water engulfed their rented house, leaving those inside little chance to escape.Budhan later contacted his brother, Kishori Sah, in Raxual. “My brother told me over the phone on Friday that he and his two boys were safe, but there was no information about the others. Since then, we have been waiting for some news. We do not know where they are or what happened to them. We are praying that they somehow survived,” Kishori said.Meanwhile, three migrant workers from East Champaran — Rambabu Sah, his brother Munil Kumar and their cousin Pramod Prasad — have also been missing in Nepal since Aug 26. They had been working for around five years at a hydropower plant near the Trishuli river in Rasuwa district.Pramod’s wife, Veena Devi, last spoke to him for around seven minutes at about 7 am on the day the tragedy struck. His phone was switched off afterwards.“We have no information about where they are or whether they are safe. We are constantly waiting for their phones to connect,” Munil’s father, Krishna Prasad Sah, said.Mohd Imran, a tailor from Hardiya village under Chauradanu police station area, has also been missing since Aug 26 while working in Rasuwa district. His family said his phone had remained switched off for three days.The families have sought help from the East Champaran administration. District magistrate Saurabh Suman Yadav said the matter had been taken seriously and immediate efforts were underway to trace the missing people.
