The children were running towards the road, screaming.

At the time, Sabitri Tamang was in her field at Satbise, Nuwakot, gathering fodder for her cattle, when she saw students from the nearby Shree Ramchandra Basic School fleeing. She asked them what had happened.

“Run,” they told her. A dam in China had collapsed, they said, and a massive flood was approaching.

The children ran towards the cliff. Tamang ran towards her home to save her grandchildren. By the time she reached there, the flood had already begun swallowing everything in its path.

Tamang, a resident of Aangitar in Nuwakot, is among thousands of survivors confronting a different kind of crisis after the flood. The disaster destroyed homes and livelihoods and took away loved ones. Weeks later, many survivors remain in temporary shelters with nowhere to go. Some are being asked to leave classrooms as schools reopen, while others are afraid to return home. With relocation plans still unclear and winter approaching, the question for many is no longer how to survive the flood. It is where—and how—to begin life again.

Tamang’s memory of that fateful day is fragmented. “A black plume of muddy water came from the sky,” she recalled. “I fell and lost consciousness. My neighbour’s elder brother told me he dragged me to safety.”

When Tamang woke up, the loss was almost impossible to comprehend. The flood took away her family, her home, her livelihood. Of the eight members of her family, only two remain—Tamang herself and her 25-year-old son. Her husband, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren—a four-year-old granddaughter and a two-year-old grandson—are all gone. From her maternal family, nine people—her father, mother, sister-in-law, nephew, grandchildren, sister and brother-in-law and their children—remain unaccounted for.

As she recalls what happened, her memories return to the chaos that unfolded within minutes. When she regained consciousness and looked towards where her home had stood, there was nothing left. Her house was gone. So were the other homes, Betrawati Bazaar, the school, the fields across the river, the surrounding villages and even the headworks of the Trishuli Hydropower Project.

“Within a minute, the flood turned beautiful settlements, bazaars and rice fields into graveyards,” she said. “I kept calling everyone, but I could not get through to anyone.”

She was told that some children had been rescued and taken towards villages in the hills. She hoped her grandchildren and other family members might be among them. But there was no one left.

Her son was spared because he was not at home when the flood struck the village. Those who survived the flood walked through the jungle and steep hills and reached Gerkhutar village.

After spending a few days in a shelter, she was brought to Kathmandu by one of her relatives. But she could stay only a few days in the relative’s rented room before she had to move again.

She asked what to do now and where to go, and her son asked her to go to another relative’s quarters.

“He himself is emotionally devastated by the loss and is inconsolable,” Tamang said. “He does not think about how long one could take shelter in a relative’s home. We are also asked to leave the shelter, as they say that school has to open.”

Like Tamang and her son, some displaced people are mentally distressed and unable to think about what to do next. They worry about how long they will have to live in the displaced persons’ camps. Relief supplies do not always arrive, and they are anxious about what the government will provide and where they will be settled.

Purna Ghale, who was displaced from Rasuwa’s Khalte, said he sometimes feels like going back to his village. “I feel like shouting out for my loved ones who were swept away by the flood, as if they might hear me and come back,” he said. “We are asked to leave the classrooms, where we have been taking refuge, and we don't know how long we can reside in the new place either.”

Ghale lost seven members of his family, including his father, elder son, daughter-in-law, youngest brother, grandchildren, three brothers-in-law, in the flood.

Khalte itself is a new settlement of residents displaced by the 2015’s Gorkha earthquake. After a team of geologists deployed by the government identified multiple villages in Rasuwa, including Tiru, Gogane, and Mailung, among others, as unsafe to reside in again, those people were moved to Naubishe near Betrawati.

They lived on rented land, building makeshift shelters for a few years. But when many residents failed to pay rent, the landowner removed them. They then erected shelters on public land in Khalte. The government had promised to provide land to resettle them, but the National Reconstruction Authority was dissolved without ensuring a safe place for the quake-displaced people.

“Now most of the people who survived the 2015 quake from my village have been swept away by the flood,” Ghale said. “Displaced people are in trauma and are in trouble about how to move on, where to go and start life again.”

For some survivors, the latest disaster has therefore become a second displacement.

Flood survivors have lost not only their homes, property, jobs and loved ones but also their sense of security. Many displaced people do not have land to build a makeshift shelter. Some have grown-up daughters; in some families, only women survived; in others, only small children remain. Many displaced people are also reluctant to leave their children and women alone in collective shelters, where more than two dozen people have to reside in a single room.

“They ask me what to do now,” Ghale said. “I don’t have any answer to give.”

Flood survivors said makeshift camps have been erected on public land and in the jungle in some places, which is unsafe. At the same time, those who did not lose their homes in the flood but were displaced because of the risk have started returning home after finding it hard to stay in the shelters.

“Though my home has not been washed away by the flood, the Trishuli river has reached very close,” said Uddab Rijal, a local of Karmetar village of Bidur, Nuwakot. “My family and others whose houses were not damaged stayed in the displaced camps for a few days and have now returned to their homes.”

Rijal, also the chair of the Nepal Red Cross Society Nuwakot, has to remain in the district headquarters most of the time during disasters for relief work. As the road connection to the Tupche village has been cut off, he does not return home every day.

“My wife has returned, but she is unable to sleep at night,” he said. “She complains that even loud noises or the sound of the river compel her to flee the house, and she cannot lock her room from the inside either due to fear of another flood.”

Rijal, who is working closely with displaced people, said prolonged indecision about where to resettle them and how much the government will support them has put survivors in a dilemma.

Even if the government offers a place to build homes, many flood victims do not want to leave their ancestral homes and move elsewhere. They worry about the education of their remaining children.

The festive season has already started, and winter is approaching. Many people don’t even have adequate clothes and worry about where they will keep their children when the temperature drops.

“Some wanted to reside in the rented rooms for the time being and spend time with their own family members during the festive time, but the question is who will pay the rent,” said Biswas Nepali, a social activist from Rasuwa, who has been actively supporting the displaced people from the Khalte and Betrawati areas. “Many flood survivors, whom I meet every day, are worried about the future of their remaining children.”

The uncertainty is particularly difficult to bear for families who have lost their homes and livelihoods and have no land to return to. For those whose homes are still standing but are no longer safe, going back remains a dangerous prospect.

Social activists and experts have urged the government not to delay decisions on relief and resettlement, saying prolonged uncertainty will only deepen the survivors’ suffering.

Nepali said that authorities must explore safe land, acquire it at the earliest and offer it to the displaced people. “When allocating land, people from the same community who share cultural ties should be offered the opportunity to settle together,” he said. “Some do not want to move to the place offered by the government, and such people should be given relief and compensation.”