When Amrit Diyali saw a human hand washed downstream by floodwaters, his heart sank.

The hand was beginning to decompose, caked in mud and dust. But what struck Amrit most was how much it resembled his younger brother Raj Kumar’s.

The devastating flood that swept through the Bhotekoshi river on August 26 left Raj Kumar Diyali, 33, his 30-year-old wife Shriti, and their four-year-old son Siraj, missing. The family, from ward 2 of Buddhshanti Rural Municipality in Jhapa, had been living in Syaphrubesi, Rasuwa, where Raj Kumar had run a jewellery business for about 15 years.

There has been no word from any of them since.

In the days after the flood, relatives travelled as far as Chitwan and Nawalpur searching for their bodies. They turned over piles of mud and stones, clinging to a grim hope: if they could not find them alive, they at least wanted to find their bodies.

On Sunday, five days after the flood, Raj Kumar’s nephew Avinash found a human hand that had been carried downstream to Nawalpur.

When he examined it, he thought it looked like his uncle’s.

“Avinash sent me a photo on WhatsApp saying, ‘Dad, I found a hand that looks exactly like uncle’s,’” Amrit said in a heavy voice. “Looking at it, it really does look like my brother’s. The fingers, the shape of the nails, everything.”

The discovery brought a painful mixture of hope and dread.

On Tuesday, Amrit sent a sample from the hand to the National Forensic Science Laboratory in Kathmandu for DNA testing. The sample is 182nd in line for testing.

As the days pass, one question is consuming him: When will the results come?

“We have stopped hoping for anything else,” Amrit said. “Even if that hand turns out to be my brother’s, at least we would know for sure.”

The hope that Raj Kumar might still be alive has largely faded. Now Amrit wants only to find some part of him, however small, so the family can finally know what happened.

Raj Kumar had run a jewellery business in ward 5 of Syaphrubesi for around 15 years. He was the only jeweller in the area, and business had been good.

His parents had once lived in the family home in Jhapa. After they died, the family rented out the house and moved to Rasuwa permanently.

“They would come back only during festivals and then return,” Raj Kumar’s sister Rama Diyali said. “Even now, we keep looking down the road, wondering when my brother will come home.”

Raj Kumar’s nephew Sachin Khati also lived with the family and helped him run the business.

Sachin survived the August 26 flood by chance.

Just minutes before the disaster, Raj Kumar had sent him to Chilime to deliver jewellery that had been pledged as collateral. By the time Sachin completed the delivery and returned, he said, the entire village had been swept away.

A twist of fate had spared Sachin. The rest of the family disappeared in the flood.

They have not been found.

According to Amrit, Raj Kumar and his family had travelled to Kathmandu just days before the disaster to pay an advance on a plot of land in Kapan.

The landowner failed to turn up, so they decided to postpone the deal and returned to Rasuwa early on August 24.

That was the last time Amrit saw his brother.

The memory of that evening in Kathmandu has since become one of the heaviest things he carries.

“After we ate, his son said, ‘Uncle, please wash my hands and face,’” Amrit recalled, breaking down as he remembered the evening.

The boy had also asked his aunt Rama to bring him two roosters.

“He said, ‘Please bring me two roosters from Rama aunt. I’ll cut them up and eat them,’” Amrit recalled.

Raj Kumar had been in a hurry to return because he still had goods that needed to be delivered to customers travelling to Gosainkunda. He felt he could not leave the orders undelivered.

“He said he would be back around August 30 or 31,” Amrit said. “But two days later, this happened.”