The Nepalese Community in Queens Mourns

**Kusha Navadarvillian** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show, I'm Kusha Navadarvillian for Brian Today here on WNYC.
Now we'll turn to Queens, where families are waiting for news from Nepal after last week's flooding. On Wednesday morning, a glacier collapsed in the Himalayas near the Nepal-China border and sent a wall of water and debris down the Trishuli River Valley, burying villages, roads, and bridges along the way. Hundreds of people are confirmed dead, thousands are still missing, and search teams are still working to reach communities cut off by the damage. Queens is home to one of the largest Nepali communities in the country. And right now, many are waiting by their phones for news of parents, cousins, and friends in the flood zone.
Joining us to talk about how that community is coping and how they're helping back home is Suresh Shahi, editor of Ka Sokas, a Nepali language news outlet that has covered the Nepali community in New York since 2012, and its English language sister site, Nep York. Suresh, thank you for joining us and welcome to WNYC.

**Suresh Shahi** (1:15)
Thank you so much for having me here.

**Kusha Navadarvillian** (1:16)
So for those of us who don't know the geography, can you tell us a little bit about Trishuli River and the towns along it? Why did a glacier collapse 100 kilometers upstream?
Why would that do so much damage to the communities below?

**Suresh Shahi** (1:30)
Right. So Trishuli River is one of the major rivers in Nepal. And if we just go back to the Trishuli River, the whole geography, the structure is like hills and mountains, then hills, and then a small valley that people are living around the riverside, right? And then how it started. So there is some news that kind of state that it is, it caused the whole flood caused by the earthquake, which was not true. So one of the major causes of the disaster was an avalanche that blocked the Linde Kola, which is the river, Linde River.
And when the river was blocked and the water suddenly moved downstream, caused the severe flooding and destructions in the communities along the river. So especially the Trishuli River, it flows through the mountains and passes through many like towns and communities before joining other rivers further south. So the flood was spatially devastating because the water came with the tremendous force. The blocked river, it caused the big damage because the amount of water and then pressure was really high. So communities along that river, including areas around Rasua, Nuwakot, Dading, Chitwan, and Nawalparasi, were completely like impacted by the floods. Homes, roads, bridges, businesses, and hydropower projects were destroyed or badly damaged. A lot of homes were swept away. A lot of businesses, a lot of like people, still we are counting numbers. Every day the numbers are changing. Still people are waiting for their families.

**Kusha Navadarvillian** (3:02)
Well, to that point, your outlet has been profiling New York families with relatives in the flood zone, including Lakshmi Bhatta who is waiting for news of her cousin. Can you tell us about her situation?

**Suresh Shahi** (3:15)
Right. Lakshmi Bhatta is one of the many examples of the family in New York that is desperately waiting for the information about a loved one who is missing in Nepal. I just spoke to her earlier as well. Her family and herself, they've been trying to follow every possible lead in hoping for good news.
And again, there are like all the stories that one of the other Nepali family who lost their seven family members in that flood and they do not have any information as of yet. So Lakshmi's story, the other person's story, this is not unique. There are many other Nepali families in New York who are watching their phones, calling relatives in Nepal, checking social media and waiting for any information. And families across the United States, both Nepali and non-Nepali, just to make sure that a lot of like Indian Americans, they went to Nepal for the different religion belief. And other than that, like a month or over, this is the trip that they go to, especially those who follow the Hindu religion, they were there as well. So they have been also contacting our Coastal Cast and Nepi York teams asking if like we can help. So we have been collecting information from those families who reached out to us via phone and via email.
In fact, this morning, my chief editor, editor-in-chief Kishore Panthiyan, we were discussing about those calls. Personally, we have been receiving in the emails, we have been contacting the government and the authorities in Nepal to help with the search and see we can just provide the information, whatever we can, from Nepali government and try to become a bridge at this time. And for these families, the waiting and uncertainty is like incredibly painful right now. They just want to know whether their loved ones are safe and where they are. And as a media outlet, as a community media, we're trying to bridge that communication gap right now, which again, it's a very devastated situation in Nepal and a lot of towers, the communications are really limited. So it's very tough for the community in Queens right now, Nepali and non-Nepali, those who were back in Nepal at that time.