Early Thursday morning, a crowd gathered at the Nepali Army’s military training centre in Maithali, Nuwakot. Traffic police struggled to manage the growing number of relatives searching for family members who have been missing in the Bhotekoshi flash flood since Wednesday morning.

Some asked whether their family members’ names appeared on the army’s list of rescued people. Others pleaded with officials to search for their missing relatives and find out what had happened to them.

Some had come looking for their loved ones who had travelled to Gosainkunda for Janai Purnima. Others sought help with rescue of people believed to be trapped inside hydropower projects and tunnels. Many left the names and details of their missing relatives with Army officials at the barracks’ entrance, hoping to trace their whereabouts.

Some had come looking for their husbands, fathers, brothers and sisters and sons-in-law. Among those waiting for news was Shashikala Khatiwada. Her husband, Dipak Rimal, worked at the Trishuli 3A hydropower project in Mailung. At around 4 pm on Wednesday, Rimal messaged her from inside the tunnel, saying that he and his colleagues were safe but needed to be rescued. In a later message, he told her that the gate was blocked and asked how they could get out.

“We came to know through his messages that there are 35 people with him,” she said.

The workers would enter the tunnel at around 7 am and come out for lunch at noon. “I tried calling him at around 8 am on Wednesday, but could not reach him. When I called at noon, his mobile phone was switched off,” Khatiwada said.

Since Wednesday evening, she has been appealing to the security agencies, particularly the Army, to rescue them. Khatiwada has been told that they are still searching for him but she has also learned that the rescue effort had made no progress.

A devastating flash flood hit Nepal through Lhende, a tributary of the Bhotekoshi river, wreaking havoc in settlements along the river in Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading districts. Government records suggest 910, including 517 foreigners, are missing in the floods.

Som Bahadur Ghale, the husband of 29-year-old Biskila Tamang, has been out of contact since Wednesday morning. He had gone to the Rasuwa customs office to ferry electric vehicles imported from China. As a driver, he had travelled there with friends to drive the vehicles from the customs point to Kathmandu.

Ghale’s family hails from Laharepauwa Rural Municipality-1 in Rasuwa, but they have been living in Battar, Bidur Municipality, Nuwakot.

“It has been two days and there is no news of my husband. There’s no clue whether he is alive nor his body has been found,” she said, breaking down. “He had stayed overnight in Timure with his friends. There has been no contact with him since.”

Although Tamang provided the Army help desk with her husband’s physical description, she had received no information by the evening. Distressed, she sat alone in a corner of a temple near the gate of the army's training centre.

A day after the devastating floods, more and more people who lost contact with their loved ones were moving between Army barracks, police stations and hospitals in the hope of finding them. The search was not limited to the disaster-hit areas: families were also searching in Kathmandu, where nearly 100 injured people have been brought for treatment.

At the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Maharajgunj, many of those searching for their relatives had gathered since early Thursday. The hospital, usually crowded with patients and their attendants, was unusually noisy, with cries of the grieving relatives.

Whenever an ambulance siren pierced the air, a group of people would rush towards it. Before the doors opened, anxious eyes would fix on the stretcher, each person scanning a face. But when the person brought out was not their search, they would retreat and wait for the next ambulance.

Some searched for names on lists of injured people posted on the hospital walls. They had come from different places, but were gripped by the same uncertainty—whether their loved ones were alive, injured or dead.

After losing contact with her 24-year-old son on Wednesday morning, Bijula Karki of Dolakha has been rushing from one hospital to another, hoping to find out whether he has been admitted. “He had gone to get some clothes. ‘I’ll be back, mother,’ he told me yesterday morning. Since then, I haven’t been able to reach him,” Bijula told Kantipur.

At the police desk on the Teaching Hospital compounds, more than 1,000 people had registered the details of their relatives lost in the Bhotekoshi floods by 5 pm Thursday.

Goma Thapa, originally from Barhabise in Sindhupalchok and now living in Swayambhu, Kathmandu, was also at the Teaching Hospital, in search of her 40-year-old husband.

“He had gone there 10 or 12 days ago. At around 8 am Wednesday, he called and said he was leaving the customs office and would be back,” Goma told Kantipur. “But I haven’t been able to contact him since.”

Similar scenes unfolded at Bir Hospital and the Trauma Centre in Kathmandu. Bhotla Sada of Sindhupalchok was at the Trauma Centre looking for his 32-year-old brother-in-law, Rajkumar Shrestha, who went to Khasha across the border on Tuesday to bring clothes for his business.

“We have heard nothing from him since yesterday morning,” Bhotla said. Rajkumar’s photograph has been posted at both Bir Hospital and the Teaching Hospital. While one family member waited at the Kathmandu airport in case his body was brought there, Bhotla continued his search at the hospitals.

“There is still no trace of him. I’ll now go to KMC Hospital,” he said.

The authorities say search and rescue operations are ongoing, with around two dozen helicopters and nearly 1,000 personnel from the Nepal Police, the Nepali Army and the Armed Police Force mobilised to locate hundreds of missing people. According to Brigadier General Raja Ram Basnet, the Army spokesperson, more than 300 people have been rescued from the flood-hit areas so far.

“We have rescued people from Timure, Syaphrubesi and Mailung and other affected places,” Basnet told Kantipur.