Chinese-Jamaican’s relatives missing after massive flood

A 34-year-old Chinese-Jamaican broke down in tears as he recounted watching people being swept away before his eyes in the catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-China border, as three of his relatives with ties to Jamaica remain unaccounted for.
Li Wei, whose family operates a wholesale business in Spanish Town, St Catherine, was visiting family when disaster struck near Timure in Nepal’s Rasuwa district yesterday. Wei, who has lived in Jamaica for the past five years, was on high ground in the mountains, visiting a friend, when he watched the disaster unfold in the riverside community below.
“There are a lot of search-and-rescue teams on the ground now, but I have never seen in my 34 years of living, I have never seen a disaster unfold in front of me. I’ve never seen people reaching for higher ground, being swept away by water so fast, almost helpless,” he told THE STAR. Wei compared Timure’s proximity to the river to Jamaica’s Flat Bridge in St Catherine. Timure sits along the river corridor in the mountainous Rasuwa district, close to Nepal’s border with China’s Tibet region, and was among the communities severely affected as a massive torrent of water, mud and debris swept downstream.
For Wei, the disaster has also hit his own extended family. Three of his distant relatives remain unaccounted for. His father is from Nepal while his mother is from China, with relatives from communities on both sides. Wei said he had travelled across the border last Friday with his father before the disaster.
“I have not been back across the border since it is damaged. That’s how I came over with my dad,” he said. For now, he is doing what he can to assist families searching for their loved ones.
“Families are devastated. They don’t know what to do because one minute they are going about their days and the next their loved ones are gone,” he said.
Search-and-rescue operations have been mounted across the disaster zone, with the Nepalese security forces deployed to affected communities. Across the border, hundreds of rescuers have also been deployed by Chinese authorities. But the conditions Wei described are making the search extraordinarily difficult.
“The mud is so thick and the water is still so high. Some lines are down. It’s chaos,” he said. High water, damaged roads, communication outages and thick sediment have complicated rescue efforts on both sides of the border. Nepalese authorities have reported extensive infrastructure damage, including destroyed or damaged roads and bridges, while hydropower facilities have also been affected.
“There’s more dead than I can account for laying in the debris. I have been helping my dad look for his family. Nothing is normal here,” he said. “I don’t know how to describe it. It is horrific.”
Preliminary assessments by Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology suggest an ice avalanche may have sent debris into the Lhende Khola upstream of the Nepal-China border, blocking the river and creating a temporary lake. Authorities believe the blockage subsequently gave way, releasing a massive surge of water, mud, rock and other debris downstream. Investigations into the precise cause and sequence of events are continuing. 
According to reports, at least 160 persons have been confirmed dead, but the number is expected to climb, as many are still unaccounted for across the affected areas of both countries.  Even after the immediate search-and-rescue operation ends, some residents will face an extremely difficult road to recovery.
“If Chinese in Jamaica can find a way to send help, that would be great for the people. It is hard for some out here,” he said.