<h1> <Marquee>In his own words</h1></Marquee>

Date: Saturday, August 01 @ 01:11:41 EDT Topic: home Tshewang Tenzin, who lost two sons in the tragedy, narrates his experience as part of the rescue team 1 August, 2009 - We went into the water only after the rescue team came. The rescue operation took almost five hours. We talked about felling a tree, but because of the difficult terrain that was not possible. Moreover, no one was carrying a dagger or anything to be able to fell a tree, as all of us just rushed to the scene. We were also hoping that the water level would subside as the rescue operation went on. I don’t know what time it was by then, but the water level subsided. The river that was earlier touching the knees of the boys began to decrease. That’s when my nephew, who can swim well, swam towards the boys, but the water level gradually rose again. By then, the water was almost touching the neck of my nephew. Had some people been able to get to the other side of the river, there would be a possibility of saving them. We were even planning to tie the rope on the boulder and get to the boys in a queue. But that wasn’t possible as the strong current made it very difficult. If we knew before we started from Tsimalakha that they were stranded on the rock, we’d have gone with some equipment. The dzongda could have just stood ashore and coordinated things from there. Instead, he also jumped in the river towards the rock. I didn’t even imagine that they’d be stranded on a rock in the middle of the river, so we just rushed without anything. We were skeptical whether whatever decision we took at that moment would have worked. Since all of us were deeply stressed, we couldn’t even think clearly. Seeing the boys in that kind of a situation, everyone would be numb. Two people, who were on the bank, left to get a 40 ft ladder after the rescue team arrived. But before the ladder reached the scene, the boys were washed away. When these people reached halfway, they heard that the boys were washed away and so they went back. By then we realised that the water level around us had risen, so even we had a tough time trying to go back to the bank. During that moment, I think luck didn’t favour us at all. Firstly, it was in the night, it was raining and then the misinformation. I’m very happy with what the rescue team did to save the boys, although it didn’t work out. When the rope was passed to the boys, they didn’t know how to tie it well. Since it was dark and foggy, we couldn’t even see how they tied the rope. The ropes used were borrowed from a DCM owner in Tsimalakha. The ropes were the ones used to tie the load. The ropes were given back to the DCM driver in the morning. By Kinga Dem, Kuensel, retrieved on 1.8.2009 from .