Kathmandu: An 8-year-old boy who escaped Nepal’s devastating flash floods by running into a forest and climbing trees has been reunited with his mother after days of uncertainty and desperate searching.

Zoyal Ghale was airlifted from the badly affected Rasuwa district on Thursday with a broken leg and cuts on his face. His mother, Matti Maya Tamang, 28, had meanwhile been moving between shelters and collection points, fearing that her two sons had been killed after their school was destroyed in the floods.

Boy ran into forest as floodwaters swept through

Zoyal and his younger brother had gone to school in a school vehicle on Wednesday morning. Their mother was at home weaving when she heard what sounded like an earthquake.

She rushed towards the school, normally a 15- to 20-minute journey, but found the landscape transformed by water, rocks and mud. The school building had been destroyed.

Zoyal later recalled that it suddenly became “so, so black”. He ran from the school into a nearby forest with a friend and climbed trees to escape the raging floodwaters.

When rescuers found him, he was carrying two 10-rupee notes that police officers had given him to encourage him to go to hospital.

Mother had feared both sons were dead

While Zoyal was receiving treatment, his mother was desperately searching for her children. After checking several shelters and collection points without finding their names, she said she had begun to believe that both boys had died.

“I had come to accept that both my children were no more,” Tamang said.

Her younger son was eventually found alive. She then continued searching for Zoyal.

A phone call brought the family together

The breakthrough came after Tamang contacted a Reuters journalist who had met Zoyal at a hospital in Nuwakot.

The journalist had been trying to help identify the boy after hospital authorities said they did not know where his family was. Zoyal agreed to be filmed in the hope that someone would recognise him.

After learning that her son was alive and had been transferred to Kathmandu, Tamang travelled to the hospital with help arranged by the journalist, as public transport remained suspended.

She finally reached Zoyal on Friday, two days after the floods had separated them.

“After I found the elder one, I felt my life was back,” she said.

Thousands of children affected by floods

Zoyal’s story comes amid a massive humanitarian crisis caused by the floods in Nepal and neighbouring Tibet. At least 580 people have been confirmed dead and around 2,500 remain missing in Nepal and Tibet.

UNICEF said at least 17,000 children had been affected across Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading. The agency is working with the Nepalese government to identify, register and reunite children separated from their families.

For Tamang, however, the reunion with her son has brought a moment of relief amid the devastation.

“Oh, he is always a mischievous kid,” she said. “This is not his first broken bone.”