Nepal flood survivors face ruined Rasuwa villages

Nepal flood survivors in Rasuwa district are facing destroyed villages, washed-out roads and uncertainty days after torrents swept through the Himalayan border area.

Yangee Tamang, whose house is on a hillside in Syabrubesi, said the settlement below where her relatives lived and markets stood had been swept away.

"It is all gone, nothing is left. No one is left," she told AFP after tracing the route of the August 26 destruction by helicopter on Thursday because roads below had been washed out.

Rescue teams in Nepal have recovered more than 1,250 bodies, and more than 5,000 people are missing, after a huge wave triggered by a rock and ice avalanche roared down the China-Nepal border.

In Rasuwa, villages, markets, hillsides and roads have been turned into stretches of mud, broken rock and debris. Roads and bridges have been washed away, vehicles are stranded and some surviving buildings are buried under thick mud.

About 100 people are feared trapped in hydropower tunnels. Tamang said her husband was safe, but his workplace, the nearby Chilime Hydropower Project, had been smashed by the flood.

"I don't know what we will do. Nothing is left here for us to live," she said.

Risang Tamang, another resident, said destroyed roads and bridges had left people unable to buy supplies even if they had money.

"Any hope that we can live here has died," he told AFP.