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Relatives and friends of the 35 Australians reported missing after a deluge of ice and rock destroyed parts of Nepal and China are desperately searching for news of their loved ones and hoping they are alive.
At least 14 of those missing are believed to have travelled to Nepal from Sydney – including boys aged 11 and 14 on a pilgrimage with their family – while a son in Melbourne is anxiously awaiting any news of his father.
The flash flood, powerful enough to tear large buildings away from their foundations and rip up bridges, has killed at least 273 people, although that number could rise into the thousands in coming days.
More than 1300 people are reported missing, including 517 foreign nationals in Nepal and 260 on the Tibetan side of the border.
Sunil Sharma, a spokesperson for Nepal’s tourism board, said 133 of the missing foreigners were from India on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus. Also missing are 47 travellers from the United States, 33 from Britain and 24 from Canada.
While 15 of the missing Australians were travelling with the Himalayan Glacier Adventure and Travel Kailash Group, six others were travelling with the Kailash Journeys tour group, and 11 were on a pilgrimage with non-profit spiritual organisation the Isha Foundation. The whereabouts of one traveller with Kathmandu Holiday Tours and Travel, and two other Australian travellers remain unknown.
A family from Cherrybrook in Sydney’s northern suburbs is among the 35 Australians missing in Nepal.
In a Facebook post, Nisha Khadka said family friends Sridharan Iyer and Lakshmi Iyer, as well as Rudhra and Rishab Iyer were missing in Nepal.
She said they were last known to be in Kathmandu before the natural disaster and friends were urgently trying to locate them.
“If anyone has seen them, has any information about their whereabouts, or has found them safe, please contact me as soon as possible,” she said.
Rishab is a medicine student at the University of Newcastle, while his brother Rudhra is a student at Western Sydney University.
Another pair of brothers, Aarush and Ashwin Muralitharan, and their parents were travelling with Himalayan Glacier and are currently missing. At 11 and 14, the boys are among the youngest Australians affected by the flood.
Also among the missing are Sydneysiders Venkatraman Balakrishnan and Chitra Venkatraman.
Meanwhile in Victoria, Melbourne father Kumar Sampath, 61, is among the missing pilgrims.
“He’s a hardworking, successful entrepreneur who came to Australia with nothing and provided his family with everything they wanted,” Kumar’s son Mani told this masthead.
“He loved hiking, nature and recently retired and wanted to explore his faith.”
Sampath ran an engineering business specialising in railways before he retired. His son said his family hoped he would be found alive.
Indian-Australian community leader Vasan Srinivasan said the other 14 missing Australians from the Himalayan Glacier pilgrimage were Sydney-based members of a cultural and religious non-profit he founded called the Australia Bharatha Brahman Samajam.
“We are all very distressed and trying to track them. I’m just praying.”
Srinivasan has held several senior community roles, including president of the Federation of Indian Associations of Victoria and vice president of the Hindu Society of Victoria.
He said those missing worked in various professions, including the financial industry, and many were his close professional friends.
Meanwhile, the Isha Foundation said 11 Australians were missing after a building they were believed to be in was engulfed and destroyed by floodwaters.
The last known signal from the group, which had completed its pilgrimage, was after members entered an immigration building on the border, the Isha Foundation’s founder Jagadish Vasudev, known as Sadhguru, said.
“They believe the entire group was in the building,” he said. “The town where they were entering, almost half the town is carved out of the valley.”
“At 9.05 we received a message from group leader Praveen. He sent a message saying they had arrived at immigration,” Vasudev said. “This event happened at 9.14am.
“His [Praveen’s] Nepal phone did not become active. If he had crossed, his Nepal phone should have become active but he did not come.”
Nepal braces for grim search
Nepal is grimly accustomed to earthquakes, landslides and floods. This disaster, however, may be the worst since an earthquake in 2015 killed about 9000 people. And what may prove unique about Wednesday’s events is the number of foreigners dead or missing.
In the streets of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, life carries on, even as the country braces for days of intense search and rescue operations in the affected areas.
The flood is a major test for Nepal’s fledgling government and its newly minted leader, former rapper Balendra Shah, who rode to power on a wave of Gen Z enthusiasm. He will need to work closely with regional neighbours China and India.
The country’s tourism industry, which supports over a million jobs, will take a hit in a peak period, and will be anxious about the future given Nepal’s frequency of extreme weather events.
Videos posted online have highlighted the ferocity of the waters, as roads and bridges in northern Nepal’s mountainous Rasuwa district were washed away when the flood struck at about 8.30am (12.30pm AEST Wednesday).
Wave of muddy brown water
Dramatic surveillance footage from the Rasuwagadhi border point between Nepal and China showed a forceful wave of muddy brown water passing downhill and smashing through a multi-storey building as people ran for their lives.
Separate footage showed the flood destroying a bridge in Nuwakot in central Nepal as it pounded buildings on both sides of the river and uprooted trees.
An initial analysis of satellite imagery suggests a flood occurred in the Lhende River due to a landslide on the Nepal-China border, according to a post on X by Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority.
Early reports from Nepalese officials suggested that an earthquake could have caused the lower part of a glacier to collapse, triggering the flood. But the US Geological Survey later said the 4.4-magnitude tremor recorded at the time was caused by glacial rock and ice collapsing onto the valley floor, causing a water avalanche.
Wong says the tragedy is ‘devastating’
Confirming the number of Australians missing in the disaster, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese highlighted the difficulties of getting information out of Nepal.
“Nepal, you know, is a developing country. It doesn’t have the resources that an event like that would have in Australia, so information is difficult,” he said, speaking from the Bush Summit in Dubbo.
“Our thoughts are with all those who’ll be concerned about their loved ones today.”
Earlier, Albanese said officials were urgently working with local authorities and tour operators to confirm the welfare of the missing.
“We stand ready to provide consular assistance. Australians in the affected area should follow the advice of local authorities,” he said.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong described the loss of life and destruction caused by flash flooding as “devastating”, while Australia’s Nepal embassy issued a joint statement with the embassies of Finland, France, Norway, Switzerland and Britain expressing “solidarity with the people of Nepal during this difficult time”.
“We encourage all those in affected areas to follow the guidance of local authorities and official safety advisories as the situation continues to evolve,” the statement read.
Wong warned the number of Australians reported missing could grow over the coming days.
“We are currently deploying further [Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade] personnel, including crisis response experts to the region,” Wong told reporters in Adelaide.
“I’ve asked DFAT to ensure that we do provide the support needed to these posts, particularly our post in Nepal.”
Describing the disaster as an “awful situation”, Wong said she would engage with the Nepalese government and multilateral organisations such as the Red Cross.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said in a social media post: “Our thoughts are with all those affected by the devastating flooding in Nepal and Tibet, including the families who have lost loved ones and those still waiting for news.
“We are also thinking of the Australians caught up in this disaster and their families here at home.”
Tour groups Intrepid Travel and G Adventures confirmed that all tourists in their groups and staff in the region were safe.
Thousands of people also live in riverside settlements downstream from the flooding, including along the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli rivers. Nepalese authorities said bridges, schools and hydropower projects had been swept away, The New York Times reported.
At least 62 missing Nepalese citizens were among hundreds of locals trekking in the Gosaikunda Lake area in Rasuwa, coinciding with the festival of Janai Purnima on Friday, Sharma added.
Nepal police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle told the Associated Press that at least 28 police officials were unaccounted for.
Nine South Koreans working on a hydropower plant were also missing, and 10 others are stranded, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said late on Wednesday.
Which regions were hit?
The Bhote Koshi River flooded about 9am on Wednesday (1pm AEST), destroying several villages as well as roads and hydropower projects, officials said.
Warnings were issued in several districts urging people to stay away from the banks of the Bhotekoshi, Trishuli and Narayani rivers.
The flood triggered a mudslide that hit Gyirong Port, a major land crossing with neighbouring Tibet, cutting roads, communications, and power links to the area.
Nepal’s security personnel have rescued more than 250 people with an army helicopter, while police and the military continue searching in flood-affected areas, Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah said in a Facebook post.
“We have asked both India and China to help us with the rescue efforts,” said Sasmit Pokharel, a spokesperson for the Nepali government.
China has deployed at least 574 rescuers to the land crossing, and India says it was co-ordinating closely with Kathmandu on rescue and relief efforts.
People living in low-lying regions were being moved to safer areas, and those along the river have been advised to remain alert, as authorities warn that a second flood may occur because a blockage remains upstream.
Flood alerts have also been issued in the Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which border Nepal, since several rivers flow down the Himalayas into their plains.
Nepal’s Energy Ministry said the country’s electricity supply had been significantly affected, largely due to the destruction of hydroelectric plants.
Rasuwa, the worst-affected area, witnessed a flash flood similar to those in August last year, when a glacial lake in neighbouring Tibet overflowed due to high temperatures in the mountain region. Nine people lost their lives, and critical infrastructure, including a bridge connecting the two countries, was damaged at the time.
Climate experts at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development said the Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhote Koshi River, experienced its highest-recorded flood on Wednesday.
“The Lhende Khola has flooded twice in 14 months, this time triggered by an ice rock avalanche from a glacier on the Nepal side that blocked the river and released a sudden surge downstream,” said Saswata Sanyal, a disaster risk reduction specialist at the climate research group.
“In a warming Himalaya, early warning is the first line of adaptation,” he added.
The Himalayan region, which spans Nepal and several neighbouring countries, including India, is especially vulnerable to heavy rains, floods and landslides because it is warming faster than much of the rest of the world due to human-caused climate change.
Research has shown that extreme weather events, including heatwaves, heavy rains and melting glaciers, have become more frequent in the region.
Members of the Kathmandu research group found this year that glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region are melting at an accelerating rate, with ice loss rates doubling since 2000 primarily due to rising global temperatures and climate change.
Australians in need of emergency consular assistance should contact the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre on 1300 555 135, or +61 2 6261 3305 (if calling from overseas).
With AP, Reuters, Bloomberg, Josefine Ganko
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