The Morning
Port

In the Gyirong Valley, some 1,800 metres above sea level, dawn is only just breaking. People walk across the Friendship Bridge, trucks wait for inspection, shops get ready to open.

Base image: photographed at eye level · Wikimedia Commons, "Nepal China Border"

The convoy waits at the gate

Nepali painted trucks stand before the border gate; travellers on foot shoulder their packs and walk toward the borderline. Rajkumar Karki, a driver with 20 years behind the wheel, has run this route for half his life. His truck carries cashmere goods bound for Gyirong Town.

On the morning of 26 August, his truck was in just such a queue.

Base image: historical photograph of the port (2016), showing the setting and daily life; not the scene on the day of the disaster

The car park fills with vehicles waiting to cross

Trucks, coaches and tourists' SUVs waiting to cross stretch out along the Gyirong Zangbo. Inside the port building, border inspection officers begin the day's checks. Wu Yanlu, a young officer born after 2000, had cleared the last inbound truck only the night before.

Base image: aerial view of the port car park · indicative of the setting, not the scene on the day of the disaster

Across the river, the shops are waking

Beneath the rock face stands the Nepali customs office. Raju Budhathoki, a customs agent at Timure, is still asleep in an upstairs room — in a little over twenty minutes the whole mountain will shake as if in an earthquake. Back on the Chinese side, the shop of Mr Zhang stands only a few dozen metres from the port; two days earlier he had set off for Shigatse to buy stock.

Base image: photograph of the Nepali customs office · Wikimedia Commons

The valley is still quiet

Mist still hangs in the Gyirong Zangbo valley. The mountain road along the river leads to Kathmandu; it is mountain road almost the whole way, and in poor condition. Six days earlier, Ms Tong, long a trader between China and Nepal, had left the country along this road. Upstream, meltwater and rock debris have already begun to move, and the port cannot hear it.

Base image: early morning in the Gyirong Zangbo valley · Wikimedia Commons, "Rasuwagadhi morning"