A Japanese family of five are believed to be among the more than 2,400 people still missing Saturday after flash floods and landslides hit the Nepal-Tibet border earlier this week, according to media reports. Five people with the surname Yamamoto, the same name of five missing Japanese nationals — a mother and father and three children — were on a list of foreign tourists released by Nepal tourism authorities, NHK reported. The family includes the parents in their 40s, as well as a 10-year-old girl and two boys age 6 and 3, according to the Asahi Shimbun daily.
Nepal authorities said that the five had been planning to cross the border from China and travel to Kathmandu, and that they last made contact with their driver near the border shortly before 9 a.m. on Wednesday, near the time of the flash flood. Contact with the driver had also been lost around that time. Scientists have pointed to a glacier collapse and rock landslide as the cause of the devastating flash flood that killed at least 586 people near Nepal’s border with China.
Asahi said a hotel reservation for two adults in Kathmandu had been made in the mother’s name for two nights starting Wednesday, but they have not arrived. According to Tokyo, five Japanese nationals remain unaccounted for — though it has not been confirmed if these five are the same individuals listed on the roster.
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