"I'm Okay": Lost 8-Year-Old Boy Survives Nepal Flash Floods With Broken Leg and Reunites With Mother

• Eight-year-old Zoyal Gale climbed a tree to survive a devastating flash flood that tore through his village in Nepal's Rasua district
• His mother Mati Maiya Tamang searched shelter after shelter for her missing sons, not knowing if they were alive
• A Reuters journalist's phone number became the one thread connecting a desperate mother to her injured child

An eight-year-old boy from Nepal's Rasua district survived one of the country's deadliest flash floods by climbing a tree, breaking his leg in the process, and waiting to be found while his mother searched desperately for him across destroyed villages and makeshift shelters.

Zoyal Gale and his brother were at school on Wednesday, 27 August 2026, when torrents of water and debris ripped through their village in the northern district of Rasua. Their mother, Mati Maiya Tamang, was at home and immediately set out towards the school. But the landscape she had known her whole life was unrecognisable, and the school building had been completely destroyed. Tamang said.

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"I had completely lost. I didn't have my children. I was going through a period of grief and I couldn't even control myself. I didn't think that there was any point in staying alive."

A tree, a broken leg and a long wait

Gale had managed to run into a nearby forest and climb a tree to escape the rising water. He was eventually found and taken to a hospital in a neighbouring district, where a Reuters journalist encountered him alone, with a broken leg and cuts on his face, and no family by his side.

Tamang moved from one relief shelter to the next, finding no trace of either of her sons. Then, on Thursday, she managed to obtain the phone number of the Reuters journalist who had met Gale hours earlier. The journalist told her Gale was alive and had been transferred to a hospital in Kathmandu for further treatment.

She could barely believe it.

In a phone call that followed, Tamang asked her son:

"Bubu, how are you feeling now?"

Gale replied:

"I'm okay."

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She said she kept imagining the moment she would finally reach Kathmandu, hold him in her arms and see his face.

By that point, Tamang had also found her younger son alive.

Thousands of children still affected

The family's reunion is a rare moment of relief against a devastating backdrop. At least 580 people have been confirmed dead across Nepal and China's Tibet region, with more than 2,500 still missing following the floods.

UNICEF has confirmed that at least 17,000 children north of Kathmandu have been affected. The agency said it is working alongside Nepal's government to identify, register and reunite children who have been separated from their families.

View the YouTube video here:

Viewers who saw the story on CNN's page were moved by Gale's resilience:

@heiketreichel2361 wrote:

"Get well soon to the young man 🍀"

More Briefly News stories on Nepal

• A viral TikTok claimed a 2019 prophecy about devastating Nepal floods had come true, but sceptics questioned the prediction’s accuracy.
• Gift of the Givers confirmed that South African Sulosh Pillay was safe at a retreat in Tibet following the deadly Nepal-Tibet border floods.
• A joyful video of a Durban woman on an Asian pilgrimage resurfaced after she went missing amid devastating flash floods in Nepal.

Source: Briefly News