Family's fear for hydropower worker among thousands missing after flood

A woman in mid Wales has spoken of her fear as she awaits news of a family member in Nepal, who is missing following the massive flash flood last week.

Jyoti Upadhyay, who is from Nepal but has lived in Tal-y-bont in Ceredigion for the past five years, said she and her husband had not been able to find out anything about the whereabouts of hydropower station worker Jit Bahadur Chaudhary.

Chaudhary, who is not a blood relation but is considered family by Upadhyay as he has lived with her mother-in-law for the past 25 years, was working at the Trishuli 3B site in the Bagmati Province.

"To be honest, since Saturday we have lost hope," said Upadhyay.

On Monday morning, 933 hydropower workers from sites across Nepal were missing - in total, 4,247 people were unaccounted for, with at least 903 known to have died.

Authorities have said rescue efforts have been largey focussed on the Trishuli 3A and 3B sites - hydropower projects with tunnels.

Nepali authorities are blasting into hillsides to try and reach those trapped, with a controlled blast carried out at the Trishuli site in an attempt to open up access in the early hours of Monday.

"It has been extremely difficult to reach the site. What we understand is that all the buildings are under meters of mud and it has been impossible to search for anyone there," Upadhyay told BBC Radio Cymru's Bwrw Golwg programme.

"Within 20 minutes the connections were all down. The phone signals have not been working and that is why it has been so difficult to hear anything.

"It took about three days for us to get any information. We have been looking at the news, trying local contacts and trying to see what the army and the police have been doing."

She continued: "We know that the only way to reach the site is by helicopter. You need special skills to be able to drive a helicopter in that area. It is an extremely difficult place. We have been waiting for special machines to be able to work through the mud.

"There is some good news from other stations along the river as some people were able to hide in tunnels within the hydropower stations .

"There's not a lot of hope for that particular site - but we don't know until someone can get in. At the moment everything is under mud."

The disaster was caused by a "glacial collapse", which is when a glacier or part of a glacier disintegrates, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The collapsed glacier hit the bottom of a valley so powerfully that it registered a tremor with a magnitude of 5.2, according to the agency.

This caused "subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream" - powerful floodwaters and debris travelled some 62 miles (100km).

Upadhyay explained that some tourists were among those missing, because the "area is important for pilgrimage to many religions".

She added the region was used to natural disasters, but that no one had expected flooding on this scale.

"In Nepal, we know that earthquakes can happen [but] this is worse than what has happened before," she said, adding the main concern was rising temperatures causing "more cases of glaciers melting and collapsing".