8 Year Old Climbs Trees To Escape Nepal Floods, Reunites With Mother Days Later

Kathmandu: When floodwaters began rushing through his village, eight year old Zoyal Ghale had just one thing on his mind staying alive.

With the water rising fast, Zoyal ran into a nearby forest with a friend and climbed trees to escape the raging floods below. What followed was a terrifying fight for survival that ended with the young boy being rescued, injured but alive.

Zoyal was later airlifted to a hospital in Kathmandu with a broken leg and cuts on his face. But while doctors treated him, his mother, Matti Maya Tamang, had no idea where her son was.

She had been desperately moving from one shelter and collection centre to another, looking for Zoyal and his brother. Their names were missing from survivor lists, and her fear grew with every passing hour.

Then came the news she had been praying for.

Zoyal was alive.

The boy was found at a Kathmandu hospital after being rescued from the flood hit region. A Reuters journalist who came across him helped connect the child with people searching for his family. Soon, Tamang was brought to the hospital.

Mother and son finally saw each other again on Friday.

For Tamang, the reunion brought an end to days of fear and uncertainty. For Zoyal, it meant being back with the person he had been separated from in the middle of one of Nepal’s worst natural disasters in recent years.

But his story is only one small ray of hope in a much larger tragedy.

Nepal has been battling devastating floods and landslides that have killed hundreds of people and left thousands missing across Nepal and neighbouring Tibet. The latest reports indicate that the combined death toll has crossed 600, although figures continue to change as rescue teams reach isolated areas and authorities update their records.

Children have also been among those badly affected. UNICEF estimates that more than 17,000 children in Nepal’s Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading districts have been affected by the disaster.

Rescue workers continue to face enormous challenges, with damaged roads, unstable slopes, heavy rain and difficult mountain terrain slowing operations.

Yet amid the destruction, Zoyal’s story has given his family something precious a reason to hope.

He climbed a tree to survive the flood.

Days later, he climbed back into his mother’s arms.

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