Sunita Sitoula, seen here sitting with her husband Mahendra, was rescued by India's NDRF after she was trapped under a debris in Kathmandu.
If you look at 42-year-old Sunita Sitoula, it's hard to believe she has survived a 50-hour long nightmare, after a powerful earthquake jolted Nepal, killing over 5000 people.
She is one of the lucky few who was literally pulled out from under a heap of rubble on Tuesday without suffering any injuries at all. She was rescued alive by India's National Disaster Response Force personnel yesterday after being trapped under debris for 50 hours.
Sunita was trapped between two slabs at the bottom of the rubble after a powerful temblor brought down a five-storey building in Basundhara of Maharajgung.
She kept calling out for help for the first 20 odd hours, giving hope to her husband Mahendra.
"I could hear her voice asking for help. Even when she had no strength left to shout, I was sure she was alive," her husband, Mahendra told NDTV.
The first few hours were the most harrowing. "I kept asking for help, but the rescue teams that came only had shovels with them. How could they have possibly managed to remove any rubble with that?" shudders Mahendra as he recollects his own struggle to get help for his wife.
Under the rubble, Sunita says she survived only because she was trapped lying on her back that possibly prevented any major injuries. Outside, her husband, feared she may have to be extricated after amputating her limbs.
NDRF Inspector Karam Singh told NDTV, "We assessed the structure and we were able to hear some feeble cries for help. Once we zeroed in on her exact location, we crawled into the cavity and gently pulled her on to a stretcher."
Sunita's eyes well up when she visits the site where her home once stood. But as she counts her blessings, she's equally aware of the struggle that lies ahead to get her life back on track.
Hundreds of people are still trapped under tonnes of debris in the Kathmandu Valley and the worst-affected remote mountainous areas, as rescue workers are desperately searching for survivors of the Saturday's 7.9-magnitude earthquake.
India is spearheading rescue and relief operations in quake-hit Himalayan country with over 16 NDRF teams working on ground there.