The last time Radhika Sharma heard from her parents, they had just crossed from Nepal into Tibet. Ramesh Sharma, 65, and Neelam Sharma, 64, who live in New York and are U.S. citizens, were making a religious pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a peak in Tibet considered sacred by Hindus, Buddhists and other faiths. Shortly after their border crossing Wednesday, a towering torrent of water, rock and mud tore through the same Himalayan corridor.
Videos from the hardest-hit border regions showed people running as the debris flow swallowed buildings and vehicles, devastated towns and settlements, and severed roads, power and communications. The suspected collapse of a melting glacier shook the ground so violently that seismic monitors initially registered it as a magnitude-4.4 earthquake. In one video from Mailung, in Nepal’s Rasuwa region, a group of construction workers were seen walking down a mountain path before noticing giant plumes of brown debris in the distance, rapidly cascading toward them.
The men reversed course to flee uphill, one briefly stopping to film before realizing the scale of the danger. He shouts in Nepali: “Oh, my God, the flood is getting so big! Let’s run — run fast, guys!
Oh, my God, get back quickly!” By Thursday afternoon, authorities had recovered 289 bodies in Nepal and confirmed three deaths in Tibet. Hundreds more remained unaccounted for. Nepal’s Tourism Board said 644 travelers, including 65 Americans, were missing.
Sharma’s parents were among a group of seven people making the journey to Mount Kailash, visited by tens of thousands of pilgrims each year. The hardest part, she said, was the not knowing. She has contacted the U.S. embassies in Nepal and China, as well as American officials domestically.
After posting pleas on social media, she has been put in contact with people in Nepal “who are trying to help track down my parents,” she said. I’m on the phone now, just waiting to hear someone say that they’ve even seen them.” Sharma is far from alone in desperately seeking information about loved ones. The State Department said in a statement Wednesday that it was “working closely with local authorities to locate and assist U.S. citizens in the affected areas,” telling concerned relatives to contact its emergency line.
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