Nepal flood survivor says stairs saved pilgrim group

Swiss pilgrim Natalia Rjumin-Girardet said a small concrete staircase saved her group from Nepal's deadly August 26 flash flood as a wave of water and mud swept through the Bhotekoshi River area.

Rjumin-Girardet, a 70-year-old yoga teacher, was travelling by bus with eight pilgrims of different nationalities on the way to Mount Kailash in Tibet when the disaster struck.

She told AFP she first saw the group's cook jump out of a bus window and then saw what looked like a “huge mountain” in the fog. She then realised it was a “massive wave of water and mud.”

“I think we had a minute, maybe two, to get out of the bus,” she said.

Rjumin-Girardet said the staircase happened to be next to the stopped vehicle, allowing the group to climb away and run up a hillside. “Those stairs saved us,” she said. “We were incredibly lucky.”

After reaching safety, she said she saw houses, cars and buses swept away below. She later learned that the group's hotel and the village of Syabrubesi, where they had spent the night, had been destroyed.

The survivors spent the first night after the flood in a small barn on a hilltop in cold and rain, she said. A helicopter evacuated them the next morning to an area where military personnel took charge of them before they were transferred to Kathmandu.

Rjumin-Girardet said the group sees August 26 as a “rebirth” and described their survival as “divine providence.”