Nepal Father Walks 60km to Find Missing 19-Year-Old Son After Floods Kill 1,000

1 articles · Updated · Al Jazeera English · Sep 2

$13 in borrowed cash has carried Talka Sada from Saptari to Kathmandu and on foot toward Nuwakot as he searches for Vinod, his 19-year-old only son missing since the August 26 floods.
Hospital and mortuary checks in Kathmandu found no trace of Vinod, who had gone to flood-hit Rasuwa a month earlier for labor work at a hydropower plant; four co-workers aged 17 to 19 are also missing.
60km of walking and repeated visits to police posts and army camps have left Sada nearly out of money, and he says officials keep denying the family access to mortuaries and evacuation sites.
More than 1,000 people have been killed and thousands remain missing in northern Nepal, where authorities say the scale of the disaster has overwhelmed rescue and identification efforts.
Sada says his Madhesi Musahar family is being pushed aside because of poverty, caste and language barriers, turning his search into a broader indictment of unequal access during the flood response.