Sunny Patel, whose father is among those missing after devastating floods on the Nepal-Tibet border, told Fox News on Saturday that he last spoke with his father, Jitendra Patel, moments before the region was struck. Nepali authorities said Saturday that the combined death toll in Nepal and Tibet was 676 with nearly 3,000 people missing, among them around 90 Americans. Rescue efforts along the border between Nepal and China are still underway Saturday following the flooding on Wednesday, which took place along a stretch of the Trishuli River, hitting dozens of settlements.
Many of the missing were on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists and others. Patel told Fox News his father was with a group heading up to Mount Kailash, which he described as “a place where thousands, if not tens of thousands of people go, every year on a spiritual pilgrimage.” Newsweek has contacted the U.S. State Department for comment about the missing American citizens for a related article.
Patel, his brother, and his mother all spoke with their father Tuesday night, which was early Wednesday in Tibet, he told Fox News. In a Thursday Facebook post, Patel wrote that his father’s tour group had crossed from Nepal to Tibet at the Gyirong/Kerung border on Wednesday morning. During that call, he told us that he had already cleared Chinese immigration and was in Tibet,” he wrote.
The family has not been in contact with him since that Wednesday morning call. Patel and his family have been working to try and locate their father but have not received much information, he says. He told Fox News that “the lack of information from the Tibetan side is kind of the most frustrating part right now.” Information about the disaster has emerged more quickly from Nepal, where authorities and local media have provided regular updates.
On the Tibetan side of the border, China's tight controls on information and restrictions on reporting have made it more difficult to assess the full scale of the damage and casualties. Patel previously told NewsNation that his father was on the hiking trip with his aunt and another family friend. Jitendra Patel is a 72-year-old father of two living on Long Island, New York.
He immigrated to the U.S. in 1979, his son said. He has three grandchildren. The most genuine person, just believed in the goodness of everybody, probably to a fault, to be honest,” Sunny Patel told Fox News about his father.
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