Heavy rains in the Himalayas brought the worst flooding we have ever had here on the mission yesterday. In a period of less than 30 minutes the waters rose up over 6ft and flooded much of our compound in more than 3ft of water! All our hostels, houses and buildings were flooded except two, some worse than others. Fortunately thanks to some quick thinking by staff and children damage was kept to a minimum as possessions, clothes and bedding were placed up high on furniture out of the waters reach. Some of our grain was damaged when the storerooms flooded but the damage will not be known until the weather clears up and we can empty out the grain bins.


Almost all of our staff houses were flooded, several under 3-5ft of water... many of the surrounding villages were worse off... some areas were 5-8ft in water. In our area the most common material for building houses is a mixture of straw and mud which meant that many people were left homeless as their houses simply washed away.


In general the people of our local community do not know how to swim and so even 4-5ft floods can be life threatening. Using ropes and life jackets our staff and some government officials were able to save all who were stranded. One of our mission boys, Bimal, a capable swimmer was washed away when he tried to help a young girl who was caught in the flood. Bimal managed to get to a telephone pole where he was able to hold on until one of our staff members could rescue him. About 10 others including some elderly were trapped and forced to hang on to a power pole until we could get ropes


As far as we know there were no casualties in our area though we did hear that a school nearby collapsed killing 18 students inside... also several others died in villages other than ours.

Flood waters have now gone down but locals now have a problem with everything being wet, cold and contaminated with flood water (which contained lots of pollution including septic waste). Dry wood for lighting fires not to mention dry ground is going to be difficult to find for at least 48hrs. Dead livestock scatter the ground around the village and the clean-up process will possibly take weeks.