Nepal floods: Father borrows $13, walks for days to search for missing son

Poor, frustrated and angry, Talka Sada is losing hope after trekking across Nepal’s flood-hit areas in his search. But giving up is not an option.Kathmandu/Nuwakot, Nepal — Talka Sada’s eyes are exhausted, the wrinkles on his face deep with worry. His heels hurt after walking long miles across Nepal’s mountains. He’s hungry and angry, but as his mood shifts between hope and helplessness, his focus remains on his mission: a desperate search for his son.Sada, who is in his 50s, is from Saptari, a district in Nepal’s Terai region — the plains that stretch across southern Nepal, south of the Shivalik Hills and north of the porous border with India.People from this part of the Himalayan nation are known as Madhesis, a distinct ethnolinguistic population with a diverse regional, cultural and caste identity. Vinod, his only son — Sada also has three daughters — has been missing since the devastating flash floods of August 26 destroyed homes, schools, bridges, power plants and everything in their path in large parts of northern Nepal.Sada last spoke to 19-year-old Vinod a day before the floods that grew from the Bhotekoshi river. Vinod had come to the Rasuwa district, the region worst affected by the floods, a month earlier to work as a labourer at a hydropower plant. He would mix cement and take on other odd jobs. Four other young men who worked with him — all between 17 and 19 years old — are also missing since the floods.“I can’t tell you how much my wife is howling. I am in deep pain myself and I do not know what to do,” Sada says as he wipes his tears.Talka Sada, right, and his brother are searching for Sada’s son, who has been missing since the August 25 floods that devastated large parts of northern Nepal [Smita Sharma/ Al Jazeera]Search, trek, search againDressed in a faded white shirt and black pants, the father wears an orange polythene bag as a raincoat. He carries a grey backpack on his shoulders. With him is his brother, Sada’s companion on a long and increasingly frustrating journey.