It has been a year since Bhabisara Bhusal of Sanoshree Taratal-6 in Bardiya lost contact with her husband. Bhupendra Bhusal had gone  to Khasa, Tibet, to work at a construction firm there.

“He telephoned us from Khasa a day before the earthquake. His situation is unknown since,” said Bhusal. But the 32-year-old is still pinning hopes that her better half would return one day.

“We have not performed his last rites yet. We want the government to find his whereabouts,” she said.

The family members could not reach Tatopani, the trade point on the Nepali side across Khasa, as the road was blocked at numerous places by the landslides triggered by the earthquakes.

“Later, we went up to Miteri bridge at the Nepal-China border but Chinese border guards denied us entry to Khasa,” said the victim’s father Khagendra.

He said that the family had registered applications at the local administration office, Home Ministry and Foreign Ministry, pleading the authorities to find Bhupandra’s whereabouts. But the government did not pay any heed to finding its citizen.

Bhusal along with three others from the same Bardiya village—Jibaraj Ramjali, Bharat Thapa and Dil Bahadur Gyawali—was taken to Khasa by contractor

Suresh Nepali of Bhurigaun to work as painters in the Tibetan town.

Ramjali, Thapa and Gyawali survived the incident and returned home. They informed the family that Bhupendra had been missing since since the magnitude-7.8 quake struck the region. According to them, a Chinese construction company gave building and painting contracts to some Nepali contractors.