The devastating August 26 floods have all but wiped out Timure, the main settlement in Gosainkunda Rural Municipality-2 in Rasuwa.

The area between Timure and the Rasuwagadhi border crossing has been reduced to a field of mud and debris. More than 250 houses and other structures were swept away, including hotels, shops, the customs office, other government buildings and checkpoints operated by the Nepali Army, Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force.

Only six damaged houses remain standing in Timure. Timber, gas cylinders and other debris are scattered across the floodplain. The few surviving structures are now the only visible evidence that a settlement once stood here.

An estimated 3,000 to 3,500 people may have been in Timure when the floods struck, according to Dhruba Prasad Adhikari, assistant chief district officer of Rasuwa. They included residents, government employees, traders and tourists. About 1,000 of them were foreigners, he estimated. Around 700 people also worked in the area each day carrying and transporting goods.

So far, 125 bodies have been recovered from Timure, and about 700 people have been rescued. The recovery of bodies believed to be buried under the debris has not yet begun.

Among those still missing are ward chairpersons Kami Tshering Tamang, Kami Sedar Ghale, Sonam Tshering Ghale and Laxmi Pariyar.

Based on figures provided by Kaisang Nurpu Tamang, chair of Gosainkunda Rural Municipality, and Adhikari, around 1,500 residents, tourists, workers, police personnel and government employees are unaccounted for. But Adhikari cautioned that there is no reliable figure for the number of missing from ward 2.

“I cannot give you an exact figure,” he said. “The estimate of 500 to 700 could be for the entire ward.”

The scale of the loss is particularly difficult to assess in Rasuwagadhi and Ghattekhola, he said, as both areas were directly hit by the floods.

“Very few people were rescued from Rasuwagadhi and Ghattekhola because the floods hit those areas directly,” Adhikari said. “And being on the border, people had nowhere to go.”

Some people were rescued from Timure itself, he said.

Among those still unaccounted for are 25 students and six teachers from Nepal Rastriya Basic School in Timure, along with nine Armed Police Force personnel and 16 Nepal Police officers who were on duty when the floods struck.

The floods also swept away branches of about seven banks operating in Timure, according to rural municipality chair Tamang. Some bank lockers have since been recovered, and security personnel have been deployed around the clock to protect them.

Phurpu Dorje Ghale, who survived after fleeing the floods, said about 700 people had previously lived in the ward. About 250 people, including 95 who were rescued and brought to Kathmandu, are now staying at a monastery in Swayambhu, Kathmandu, he said.

Ghattekhola has also disappeared

Ghattekhola, another settlement in ward 2, has suffered a similar fate. The settlement, about 1.5 kilometres from Rasuwagadhi, once had around 30 houses.

It was home to an immigration office, the Rasuwagadhi Hydropower Project and six well-equipped hotels. The floods swept them all away, leaving little more than a riverbed of debris. Twelve bodies have been recovered from the area.

The Nepali Army and police also had posts in Ghattekhola. Today, almost nothing remains.

According to the 2021 national census, the ward had 163 households and a population of 550. In recent years, Timure had become increasingly busy as the main transit point for tourists and pilgrims travelling towards Kailash.

Survivors said a large number of buses and containers were in Timure when the floods hit. Vehicles and containers that had either cleared customs or were still awaiting clearance were swept away.

In Khaidi, another settlement in the same ward, only six herders survived.