Nepal Flash Flood: Mango Tree Saves Labourer From Death As Raging Waters Sweep Him Away

A mango tree became the unlikely saviour of a 24-year-old Nepali labourer who was swept away by a powerful wall of water, mud and rocks while working near Bidur.

Bibek Kumal was digging a toilet pit outside a newly built house on Wednesday when he heard an unusual hissing sound. His four co-workers, standing above the roughly five-foot-deep pit, immediately realised something was wrong and shouted for him to get out and run.

Kumal managed to climb out and started running, but he had only seconds before the torrent reached him.

"I started running. Then a wall of water came thundering down as if it was an earthquake," Kumal said from his hospital bed at Kathmandu's National Trauma Centre, with his brother Dinesh beside him, according to The Daily Star.

Mango tree saves man from being swept to his death

The rushing water knocked Kumal off his feet and carried him downstream through mud, rocks and debris.

Then, amid the chaos, he was caught by a mango tree.

"Luckily I was stuck up in a mango tree," Kumal said. "Had there been no mango tree, I would have been washed away to death."

Kumal clung to the tree while the flood destroyed everything around him. From his precarious position, he watched the house where he had been working disappear beneath the violent flow.

For several moments, the mango tree was the only thing preventing him from being carried farther downstream.

Eventually, police officers reached the stranded worker and pulled him to safety. Kumal had suffered injuries to his right leg after being hit by the rushing water and then struck by a large stone.

Despite the destruction around him, Kumal said his own house, located elsewhere, escaped damage.

A routine workday turns into a fight for survival

Kumal had been carrying out construction-related work when the disaster suddenly unfolded.

His colleagues' warning gave him a chance to escape the pit, but there was almost no time to get clear of the flood's path. The speed and force of the water turned what had been an ordinary working day into a desperate fight for survival.

His account offers a glimpse of how quickly the disaster struck people living and working downstream.