When catastrophic flash floods obliterated the Nepali market town of Syafrubesi on 26 August, the workers who had built its hotels and homes were among the most vulnerable. Three migrant labourers from Bihar, India's poorest state — Arman Ansari, Samir Ansari and Mukhtar Ansari — were killed, their bodies unrecovered. Two colleagues, Neyaz Miya and Mehadi Hassan, narrowly escaped. More than 1,200 people have been confirmed dead, with at least 4,000 still missing.

The men were part of a broader pattern of economic migration driven by stark inequality. Wages for carpenters and masons in Nepal are roughly 50% higher than on the Indian side of the border, compelling workers from Bihar — a state with chronic land scarcity and limited local employment — to cross into Nepal. Hassan, who owned no agricultural land, sent approximately £130 a month home to support his wife and four children. Miya, a contractor who had worked in Syafrubesi for a decade, remitted around £260 monthly to support six children and his parents.

The disaster has left surviving families in acute hardship. Mukhtar Ansari's wife requires urgent eye surgery, while her son Osama — searching Kathmandu hospitals for his father's body — says his earnings are no longer sufficient to cover the cost. Arman Ansari's 14-year-old son, Salman, who witnessed the flood, says he cannot sleep. The three families are now preparing funeral rites, having abandoned hope of recovering the bodies.

The tragedy illustrates the acute risks faced by informal migrant construction workers, who lack safety nets, formal employment protections or disaster insurance. Miya and Hassan, having lost their tools and livelihoods, are already seeking new work — this time in Nepal's plains, vowing never to return to the hills.