Sep 01, 2026 17:08 pm IST

Reporter's Diary | Roads Were Gone, We Kept Going: 6 Days Through Flood, Debris And Death In Nepal

NDTV's Sikta Deo recounts six harrowing days reporting from disaster-hit Nepal

Sikta Deo Sikta Deo कंट्रीब्यूटिंग एडिटर/ सीनियर एंकर

Sikta Deo कंट्रीब्यूटिंग एडिटर/ सीनियर एंकर

I was visiting Kathmandu for the first edition of NDTV's World Anviksha: Ideas Across Borders summit, which was to focus on India-Nepal relations. I was supposed to spend two days here, and was pretty excited to meet the 'Mahanayak' of Nepali cinema, Rajesh Hamal, who is often called the 'Amitabh Bachchan' of Nepal. I was to be in conversation with him during one of the sessions.

I landed in Kathmandu and was preparing for the summit when, at around 11.30 am, a friend, who is a Nepali journalist, told me that a major landslide had hit the country. I wasn't sure. I thought there must have been a small incident somewhere in the hills. But in another hour or so, as more information came in, I was convinced it was bigger than what I was thinking. My reporter's instincts told me that I should go to the ground and see things firsthand. I spoke to my office in Noida back in India and told them I wanted to head to the affected area.

My cameraperson, Pooja Arya, and I had to convince our local driver to take us to the closest point to the flood. He refused initially, but eventually agreed after much coaxing. It was pouring as we left Kathmandu. The drive to Nuwakot was expected to take three hours.

We had no TV cameras with us since no field equipment was required for the summit. All I had was my phone, as did my cameraperson. As the rains intensified, the army barricading the turn to Nuwakot indicated that the tragedy was perhaps bigger than what we anticipated.

We met locals. The first woman I met took me to the first floor of her house and said, "I lived on the ground floor, and that's submerged now." The area had bad connectivity. We quickly shot videos and eyewitness accounts to send to the Delhi office. The challenge was the rain and the darkness. The debris, mud, and silt made it more difficult to move ahead. 

Even so, NDTV was the first foreign media to be on Ground Zero in Nepal on August 26. Drenched and with our phones alerting us that water had entered the devices, we continued reporting until late into the night at Nuwakot.

That night, I met a young couple at a tea shop when we took a pit stop to have some water. Their house was inundated, and they had been separated from their family. I recorded my conversation with them, and they promised to take me to their home, Trishuli, the next morning.

We were prepared to sleep in the car till sunrise, but our phone batteries were dying, and we desperately needed dry clothes. So we drove back three hours to Kathmandu, changed, and picked up TV live telecast equipment. The next morning, we headed back with the same couple,........

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