Pramod Poudel had no idea that an early-morning phone call with his new wife would be their last – but hours later, a wall of water, ice and mud tore through her Nepalese village, leaving her and three members of his family missing.
On Aug. 26, a catastrophic flood tore through communities along the Nepal-Tibet border, sending torrents of water, ice and debris surging through valleys below the Himalayas.
Roads and bridges were ripped apart, homes were swept away and entire communities were left buried beneath thick layers of mud as the flood cut off areas already difficult for rescuers to reach.
The scale of the disaster has continued to grow, with thousands of families waiting for news as search teams struggle to reach communities isolated by the destruction.
Glacial avalanche
The first clue to the enormous force unleashed that morning came from the U.S. Geological Survey, which initially registered the event as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake. It later determined that the seismic activity had instead been caused by a glacial collapse and debris flow that triggered catastrophic impacts downstream.
The resulting surge of water, ice and rock travelled nearly 14 miles in less than seven minutes, according to CNN, giving communities in its path little time to escape.
