Since devastating flash floods tore through the Nepal-China border region, Mukti Patel has been gathered with relatives and friends at her parents’ home in Richmond, Virginia, waiting for word about her father, her sister and two other family members who remain missing.
Patel knows the hotel where they had been staying was swept away by the floodwaters. But while speaking Friday and recalling moments with her missing loved ones, she stopped herself mid-thought.
“I shouldn’t talk in past tense yet,” she said. “We don’t know anything.”
As rescue crews continued searching through mud and debris and pulling survivors to safety, relatives of some of the more than 2,000 people still unaccounted for clung to the possibility, however faint, that their loved ones might still be alive.
During a Zoom call Thursday night, some families asked whether they could travel to the disaster zone themselves and whether a missing relative could have survived in an air pocket, said Sanket Pandey, managing director of Himalayan Glacier Adventure and Travel Company.
The travel company, which maintains an office in Baltimore, had arranged a two-week trip to the region for 40 guests and seven tour guides. All 47 people are missing, Pandey said, leaving their families anxiously searching for answers.
“It’s really difficult to have nothing,” he said.
Patel’s relatives were traveling with the Himalayan Glacier group when the floods hit Wednesday, killing hundreds and leaving more than 2,000 people missing. Roughly 90 Americans are among those unaccounted for, according to the U.S. State Department.
Patel, 27, said her dad, Umesh Kumar, 56, had wanted to make the trip for many years and traveled through India to Nepal, where he was joined by her sister, Akanksha, 32, and her sister’s husband, Ishan, 32.
Ishan’s mom, Shilpa, 59, was also on the trek. Ishan and Shilpa Patel have dual Canadian and U.S. citizenship while Umesh Kumar and Akanksha Patel are Canadian citizens, according to Mukti Patel.
Akanksha Patel is a psychiatrist who wants to break stigma around mental health problems, her sister said.
“Everything I’ve done in life has been off the blueprint of my sister,” Mukti Patel said between tears in a phone interview. “There’s no ounce of meanness in her.”
Her father is a joyous person who helped victims of the COVID-19 pandemic, and her brother-in-law, an orthopedic surgeon, has brought great happiness to her sister’s life, she said.
Ishan Patel turned 32 on Wednesday, and the family called to wish him a happy birthday. That was their last contact.
Mukti Patel said she would like more countries to help the rescue and recovery efforts.
Jiwan Jyoti, who has U.S. citizenship, also was traveling with Himalayan Glacier and was listed by the group as missing. They had stopped in Timure, Nepal, before they were set to leave for a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists and others, her longtime friend Manmeet Singh Meet said.
Jyoti, a 50-year-old from Lexington, Massachusetts, called her family from breakfast on Wednesday as she was preparing to cross into Tibet.
Meet said the phone call ended “at around 8:40 a.m. local time in Nepal, and then I think around 8:45, this flash floods came, and then our world turned upside down.”
He later heard that the hotel where Jyoti had been staying — and where her location was last recorded on the Find My iPhone app — was destroyed. Now Meet said he is losing hope that his best friend of 15 years will be found alive.
“She was essentially almost in the epicenter over there,” Meet said.
Vaasavi Unnava, a 31-year-old PhD student, thought her parents had already crossed into Tibet with the same tour group when she learned about the flooding.
“I was not really that worried, but I just sent them a text like to be sure,” she said. The WhatsApp message didn’t get delivered.
Her father, Hanumantha Rao Unnava, and mother, Vasundhara Unnava, had set out on a retirement trip and were most excited to go spend two months in India with family after going to Mount Kailash. The couple from Woodland, California, is among dozens of U.S. citizens missing in the flood.
“They were so, so excited. My dad was talking about finally getting to spend time with his mother,” Vaasavi Unnava said.
Until recently, her father was the dean of the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis, and her mother lectured at the university, she said. Vaasavi Unnava described her dad as “disciplined and duty-bound” but also “a big joker.” She described her mom as “spontaneous and playful” and “the smartest woman I’ve ever met.”
“They have just changed so many people’s lives for the better,” she added.
Associated Press journalist Hannah Schoenbaum contributed.
