NUWAKOT, Nepal: Eight-year-old Zoyal Ghale, who escaped Nepal's deadly floods by running into a forest and climbing trees, has been reunited with his mother.

His mother, Matti Maya Tamang, 28, had feared that both Zoyal and his younger brother had died after their school was destroyed.

Zoyal was airlifted from the badly damaged northern district of Rasuwa a day earlier. He had a broken leg and cuts on his face. While he was being taken to safety, his mother was moving between shelters and collection centers, desperately searching for her two missing children.

Tamang said she had almost accepted that her sons were dead after repeatedly failing to find their names on lists of rescued people. "At the fourth place too, my children's names were not on the list, and they were not there," she told Reuters.

At least 17,000 children have been affected by the floods in Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading districts, UNICEF said. The agency is working with the Nepalese government to identify children separated from their families and help reunite them with their parents.

At least 580 people have been confirmed dead in Nepal and neighboring Tibet, while about 2,500 others remain missing.

After further searches failed, Tamang obtained the phone number of Reuters journalist Sahana Bajracharya. The journalist had met Zoyal at a small hospital in Nuwakot after hearing about an injured boy whose family could not be located.

Bajracharya spoke to Zoyal before he was transferred to Kathmandu and agreed to film him, hoping his relatives would recognize him. She left her contact number with hospital staff.

Tamang called several hours later. Bajracharya told her that Zoyal was alive and had been moved to Kathmandu. Tamang said the news was difficult to believe after days of searching.

She had already located her younger son, who had also survived. Finding both boys brought her great relief.

The brothers had gone to school on the morning of August 26. Tamang stayed home weaving before hearing a noise that sounded like an earthquake.

The disaster was triggered when part of a glacier near Langtang Lirung mountain collapsed, sending ice and rocks into the valley. The material caused a huge landslide that pushed water and debris through northern Nepal and into Tibet.

Tamang tried to reach the school, normally a 15- to 20-minute drive away, but found the area almost unrecognizable. The school building had been destroyed, and mud, rocks and floodwater covered the surrounding area.

Zoyal later told rescuers that he had been studying when the flood hit. He ran from the school into a nearby forest with a friend and climbed trees to escape the rising water.

When Reuters found him at Chakra Dev Hospital in Nuwakot on August 27, staff did not know where his family was. His right leg was broken, and his face was scratched and bruised. He was holding two 10-rupee notes given to him by police officers who had rescued him and persuaded him to go to the hospital.

By August 28, Tamang had reached the Kathmandu hospital where her son had been transferred. Bus services had been suspended, so Bajracharya helped arrange a vehicle for her.

Zoyal's father, a construction worker in Japan, was also traveling to Kathmandu. After days of uncertainty and fear, the family was finally reunited.

The floods have devastated Rasuwa, but Tamang said her family had been fortunate to survive.

"Oh, he is always a mischievous kid," Tamang said. "This is not his first broken bone."