Missing Persons Photos Adorn Hospital Wall After Flood

Kathmandu. A wall of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Maharajgunj is no longer an ordinary wall. It has become a silent witness to tears, waiting, and never-dying hope. It has been exactly 11 days since the devastating flood in the Bhote Koshi River in Rasuwa washed away houses, settlements, bridges, and roads. However, many people swept away by that flood are still missing. The hospital wall is now filled with the pictures of those missing people. The pictures pasted there are of various types. Some have passport-size photos, while some have pictures of themselves smiling with their families. Some have hastily printed and pasted the last picture of their loved ones, which was saved in their mobile gallery, on the wall. Below each picture, the name, address, and contact number are written – in the hope that someone might find them somewhere! Relatives come to the hospital courtyard every day to see those pictures. Some intently observe the faces pasted on the wall, while some search for the names of their lost people in that crowd. They inquire with the hospital staff as soon as they meet them, but it has been a long time since new flood victims were brought to the hospital. The truth is cruel, but the waiting of the relatives is not over yet. Even after 11 days have passed, their hearts have not given up. In the faint hope that the faces pasted on the wall will one day return alive, the eternal wait of some families continues as before.