STORY: Jugasar Raya Yadav was a passenger on a bus in Nepal's Chitwan district on Friday (July 12) when a landslide hit, sending his and another vehicle into the swollen, fast-flowing river below.
"All of a sudden, mud and debris started to come down. We jumped from the bus as it started veering off. I was at the front of the bus with five others but only three of us were able to survive. There were about 35 people on the bus."
A search of the Trishuli River, some 53 miles west of Kathmandu, was suspended on Friday (July 12), after efforts by hundreds of rescuers and more than two dozen divers yielded no signs of the buses or their missing passengers.
A local official said the search would resume on Saturday.
Footage released by the Nepalese Armed Police Force showed rescue boats on the water, which appeared brown in colour because of mud and silt.
Authorities said that some passengers survived with only minor injures, having jumped from the buses before the mass of rocks and mud came down the slopes.
Landslides and floods triggered by torrential monsoon rains have killed at least 91 people in Nepal since mid-June.
More than a dozen people died across the country in lightning strikes, floods and landslides triggered by the rain over the 24 hours preceding the Chitwan disaster, police said on Friday evening.
Following the incident involving the two buses, the government announced plans to ban night bus operations in places with poor weather forecasting facilities.
