CHITWAN, Nepal: For four agonising days after floodwaters tore through Nepal's Rasuwa district, Ayush Khadka's family searched desperately for any sign that the 21-year-old civil servant was still alive.
The Khadkas were among thousands of families clinging to hope amid the chaos wrought by a glacial collapse that sent an unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud and debris crashing through valley towns and villages in Nepal and across the border in China.