‘The Smile I Have Is for the Survivors’: Priya Adhikari’s Rescue Story

Nepal’s first female helicopter captain, Priya Adhikari, has flown about 100 rescue missions in the days after the flood, CNN reported.

In an interview with anchor Anderson Cooper, Adhikari said crews were exhausted by the repeated flights. She said pilots were trained for such work and had handled rescue flights and missions carrying bodies for a long time.

The airspace was crowded. Adhikari said about 20 helicopters operated continuously in the narrow valley, with several sometimes using the same evacuation point. Pilots had to track nearby aircraft while navigating and communicating frequently by radio.

The landing conditions presented another challenge. Mud-covered areas could look like concrete from the air but give way underfoot, according to Adhikari. She said pilots could not set the aircraft down completely on the unstable surface and had to keep the helicopter powered.

“The smile I have is for the survivors.”

Priya Adhikari  |  Interview with CNN

Adhikari estimated that more than 200 people found alive in the Timure area, including local residents and foreigners, were evacuated during the first two days. Five or six helicopters and an army aircraft took part in the operation, she said.

A girl was found alive in an area below Timure after two or three days and taken to a hospital in Kathmandu, according to Adhikari.

Adhikari also described seeing many bodies from the air. During the interview, Cooper described body bags as the most urgently needed supply as bodies were being recovered.

In Adhikari’s assessment, the concentration of deaths and missing-person cases in one valley made the flood bigger than Nepal’s 2015 earthquake.

She said she had searched for several missing people, including a couple and two Nepali men — one an Isha Foundation volunteer and the other a bank employee in Timure. Adhikari said she had found no sign of them.

Despite the exhaustion, Adhikari said the survivors gave her reason to smile.