Chaniklal Tamang pulled Raj and Meghana from the Nakkhu flood in four minutes

It was around 8 a.m. on Saturday, 28 September 2024. Chaniklal Tamang of Kavre Temal had come down to the bank of the Nakkhu Khola in Lalitpur with his wife and daughter to look at the flood. Two days of relentless rain had turned the stream into a brown wall of water. Across the river, four members of the Sah family from Rautahat — Raju Sah (43), his brother Raj (22), and Raju's daughters Meghna (6) and Setu (4) — had climbed onto the roof of their inundated house. The water reached the roof and washed all four of them away. Chaniklal's wife saw them first. She pointed and shouted. He did not stop to take off his shirt. He went in the moment her voice reached him. Police on the bank had already tried and failed. The current was too strong. Chaniklal swam diagonally with the current, not against it. On his second attempt he caught the hand of Raj Sah, who was clutching his six-year-old niece Meghana with the other arm. He brought both of them to the bank in roughly four minutes. Meghana was unconscious. Chaniklal pressed on her stomach until river water came out of her mouth and she revived. Two of the four were saved. A third member of the family swam out alone. The four-year-old, Setu, and another relative were not recovered. The Bagmati Province government later announced a cash reward of Rs 150,000 for Chaniklal. Several private companies and a life insurance firm honoured him separately. He had no swimming training beyond what he had picked up as a child in his village.