Families search for answers as about 90 Americans remain unaccounted for after catastrophic Nepal-Tibet floods
NEW YORK/KATHMANDU — A 14-year-old New York girl and her mother are among about 90 Americans unaccounted for after catastrophic flooding devastated the Nepal-Tibet border region, leaving families across the United States scrambling for information as damaged communications and inaccessible mountain communities complicate efforts to determine who survived. Rashi Shashidharan, an eighth grader, and her 54-year-old mother, Rekha Shashidharan, disappeared after travelling north from Kathmandu toward Tibet as part of a pilgrimage, according to relatives. Rashi's uncle, Shekhar Agrawal, said he last spoke with them at around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, little more than an hour before a massive glacier and rock collapse triggered the destructive torrent. The U.S. State Department said about 90 Americans remained unaccounted for Thursday, while three U.S. citizens had been rescued and officials were not aware of any confirmed American deaths.
The Shashidharans had spent several days in Kathmandu acclimating to the Himalayan altitude before travelling toward the Chinese border with a tour group. According to Agrawal, Rashi had been excited about making the Hindu pilgrimage and initially planned to undertake it without her mother, but Rekha decided to accompany her rather than let her teenage daughter travel alone. During their final conversation Wednesday morning, the pair told relatives they planned to reach an immigration checkpoint around midday and then cross into Tibet. At approximately 8:37 a.m., international scientists say, an enormous section of glacier, ice and rock broke from the mountainside and crashed into the valley, generating a violent surge of water and debris through communities below. The family has heard nothing from mother or daughter since.
Their uncle described the first days after the disaster as a critical window for finding survivors. From Mumbai, he has been calling telephone numbers provided by officials, television reports, friends and people online, searching for anyone who might know where his sister and niece were when the flood struck. Some numbers did not work and others produced no information, he said. Power and telecommunications were destroyed across parts of the disaster zone, however, meaning the absence of contact does not by itself establish what happened to those listed as missing. Dozens of foreign nationals have already been rescued, leaving families clinging to the possibility that relatives may be alive but isolated from communications.
The Shashidharans are part of a much wider American missing-person operation spanning several states. Among those unaccounted for is 72-year-old Jitendra Patel of Long Island, who called his family Wednesday morning to say he had crossed into Tibet while travelling to Mount Kailash. His son, Sunny Patel, said WhatsApp messages to his father were no longer being delivered. Venus Rajnikant Patel, 45, of Ohio, who had planned the pilgrimage for two years, is also missing after speaking with relatives only hours before the disaster. AP reported appeals from families searching for a Virginia woman, a Texas couple and other Americans whose journeys converged on the same Himalayan pilgrimage corridor.
Another New York family is searching for Ramesh Sharma, 65, and Neelam Kumari Sharma, 64, New York City residents who were travelling toward Mount Kailash on their first major trip together since retiring. Their daughter Radhika Sharma said the last information available to the family placed her parents at the border around 8 a.m., roughly an hour before the flood, leaving relatives uncertain whether they managed to cross safely into Tibet. She has contacted U.S. embassies in Beijing and Kathmandu and connected with other families searching for Americans, but said she still had no definitive information about her parents' whereabouts.
Many of the missing Americans were travelling for the same reason. Mount Kailash in Tibet is sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and followers of the Bon tradition, attracting pilgrims from around the world. The Isha Foundation said 22 Americans associated with its pilgrimage group were among those unaccounted for after a group reached an immigration centre in Gyirong, Tibet, shortly before the flood struck. A foundation representative said its coordinator communicated at about 9:05 a.m.; the destructive flood reached the area minutes later. The 22 Americans were part of a larger group of 77 people associated with the foundation whose status became uncertain after communications disappeared.
The numbers illustrate the extraordinary international scale of the catastrophe. More than 1,300 people were initially reported missing across Nepal and Tibet, including hundreds of foreign nationals from dozens of countries, although those figures remain fluid as communications return and people are located. Nepal's Tourism Board separately identified at least 65 Americans missing in Nepal, while the State Department's broader figure of about 90 covers U.S. citizens who may have been affected across the disaster region. Those figures should therefore not be treated as contradictory or simply added together: agencies are working from different lists and geographic areas, and officials have warned that missing-person totals will change as identities and locations are verified.
The United States has begun mobilising assistance. President Donald Trump said Thursday that Washington had spoken with Nepal's leadership and was prepared to provide whatever assistance was needed. The State Department said the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu was working with local authorities and tour operators to account for Americans, while Washington dispatched a disaster-response adviser and announced $500,000 in emergency assistance through Catholic Relief Services. American officials have stressed that the inability to contact a traveller does not necessarily mean that person was caught in the flood, particularly given severe communications failures across the region.
For families, however, the distinction provides little immediate comfort. Every passing hour reduces the rescue window for anyone injured or trapped, while unstable terrain and the possibility of further flooding continue to slow operations. Agrawal said his family remains hopeful because previous disasters have produced survivors days after they disappeared. His appeal now is for faster coordination and clearer information from authorities as rescuers work through isolated communities on both sides of the border.
The American missing-person crisis adds another dimension to what has become an international Himalayan disaster. Behind the changing casualty figures are families scattered across New York, Texas, Ohio, Virginia and elsewhere, many of whom spoke with their relatives only hours or even minutes before communications disappeared. For the Shashidharan family, that enormous international rescue operation has been reduced to one unanswered question: whether Rekha and 14-year-old Rashi reached safety before the wall of water swept through the border corridor. Until communications and access are restored, their family — like dozens of others across America — can do little more than keep calling and wait.