SOCORRO, India – Two sisters sit on chairs, apparently stunned. In halting sentences, in an Instagram post, they explain: "Our parents Shubhakshi and Sumit were in Nepal," one young woman, who introduces herself as Varnika says, "when the floods hit." Since the devastating floods in Nepal last Wednesday, social media has been awash with appeals from people searching for their loved ones. Most posts include photographs of those missing people, with phone numbers to call for more information.
Many had one thing in common: they were pilgrims on a sacred journey to Mount Kailash, a Himalayan peak located in Chinese-held Tibet, and at the moment of disaster they were at, or near to, a once-popular border crossing, one of the worst impacted locations. Deadly incidents at pilgrimages are not unusual: from a stampede at a religious gathering known as the Kumbh Mela in India that killed more than 30 people in 2025, to a panicked crush in the Muslim holy city of Mecca during the Hajj that killed more than 2,400 people in 2015. But a flood sweeping away worshippers on pilgrimages centered in the Himalayas is rare.
Even more so that it was triggered, in part, by climate change—an ominous sign for the future of pilgrimages in the region. It's unclear how many pilgrims remain unaccounted for by local authorities, but they appear to be a large cohort among the 853 foreigners that China and Nepal have reported as missing. Indeed, according to posts on social media and interviews with journalists, they may represent many of the 287 missing Indian nationals reported by the Indian government on August 29th—the most recent date such figures were released—as well as the 80 missing U.S. citizens.
They include Vivek Srivastav, according to his brother-in-law Guarav Khare, who initially posted about Srivastav on X. He told NPR that Srivastav had settled in Atlanta decades ago. A biotech scientist, he became an American citizen 5 years ago; the kind of person who believed that "life is all about serving people." Since the floods, "we have been in search for him," Khare says, of Srivastav's wider family.
Srivastav had been on a pilgrimage alongside 10 others to the same Himalayan mountain, Mt. Kailash, which is sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and indigenous Tibetan religions. Kailash for the faithful "is one of the most important things that they will do as they approach the last leg of their life," says Hindol Sengupta, a historian of religion.
Kailash "is the ultimate abode of Lord Shiva," one of the most important deities in Hinduism and a god associated with power and destruction. "Gods walk among men in these mountains," Sengupta says. "This is very deeply embedded in what I would call the Hindu imagination of the world." Mt.
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