Sussex man’s wife, parents, brother and uncle missing after Nepal floods

A Sussex man has said he has not heard from his wife, mother, father, brother, and uncle in Nepal since the country was hit by a devastating flash flood.

Speaking to the BBC, Pramod Poudel from Uckfield, said he believes “90 per cent” of the village his family live in has been swept away, and that he fears the worst for them.

“I have my dad, my mum, my brother, my uncle, and my wife who live there, and I haven’t heard from them for a while,” he told BBC Radio Sussex. “I don’t know what to expect.”

The catastrophic floods have killed more than 350 people and left hundreds missing, including almost 650 foreigners and 33 British tourists.

Mr Poudel, who runs Mo Mo Nepalese street food in Sussex, has been left with no way to communicate with his family with all power wiped out. He is planning to fly out to the country in a bid to find out what has happened to his loved ones.

“It’s a very very difficult time for me and my family and my country at this moment,” he said. “But obviously I have to go and see what happened there. There is no power, no electricity, so I can’t contact anyone, so it is a very difficult time not knowing what is happening.

“The previous I heard is the whole village where my family lived there is nothing remaining there. Nobody knows what happened, obviously a lot of people are missing and there is no information regarding who is missing, where are they, nobody can contact each other.

“And all the bridges are broken so you can’t cross the land between the districts so obviously transport is not available at the moment, there is no roads, there’s no bridges to cross, and no communication because of no power and no electricity so it is very very difficult and hard.”

Torrential floods hit the Himalayan border areas of Nepal ⁠and Tibet on Wednesday and swept away homes, roads, bridges, and power projects. Experts believe the floods were caused by “a glacial collapse and debris flow”, with initial satellite imagery showing a large section of the lower end of a glacier breaking away at an altitude of about 5,200m (17,000ft) and falling roughly 1,200m (3,900ft) onto the valley floor.

The resulting avalanche struck the Lhende River in Tibet, about 20km (12 miles) northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border crossing with Nepal, temporarily damming the water before the barrier gave way and released a powerful flood downstream.