The avalanche of ice and rocks fell on the village of Langtang just after the ground started shaking that Saturday morning. Even before the family of Dawa Tamang could run for safety the debris had engulfed them.
Tamang, 35, has a dazed look on his face at the courtyard of Kathmandu Medical College (KMC) where his family was evacuated by helicopter on Monday. Tamang himself was in Kathmandu with his elder son. Doctors examine his two-and-half year old son Thindup who broke both his legs while the family tried to escape from their house. His five-year-old daughter Pasang Lhamu escaped with minor injuries. His wife Karsom, 32, sits nearby with an injured arm.
The Tamang family was one of the lucky ones. Nearly all the 200 inhabitants of this tiny village at the base of Mt Langtang are presumed to have perished. The Tamangs only got out because a trekker chartered a helicopter and evacuated them to Kathmandu.
“The entire village is gone, our house is gone, where can I go once this is over?” asks Tamang whose son will have to be operated in a few days. He says he was lucky to have a benefactor who brought him out, there was no presence of the government in Langtang
Next to Tamang in a makeshift bed is Chunchok Tamang, 29, paralysed from the waist down after a rock hit her. Her one-year-old daughter plays nearby. Her husband and mother-in-law were killed. “I survived because I wasn’t inside the house,” she adds, “but my entire family is gone, where will I go with this little one?”
Waiting on her is Kunga Tamang of the same village. “I have been trying to get in touch with my family. But the phone lines are down and there is no way to get there. The roads are blocked and they say even the helicopters haven’t been able to land there now. I don’t know whether they are dead or alive,” says the 20-year-old.
