They went to Mount Kailash. Then calls stopped: Indian-Americans missing after Nepal floods
For the families of Kinnari and Mihir Patel in Gujarat’s Vadodara, the wait began after the couple stopped answering their phones.
The couple, who have lived in New Zealand for about 30 years, had travelled from New Zealand to Kathmandu before setting out for the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage. Kinnari had told her family she planned to visit Kailash before returning to India for Raksha Bandhan. They set out on August 21. They have not been heard from since, according to Kinnari’s brother Chirag Patel, who spoke to news agency ANI.
Vadodara Couple Missing in Nepal Floods! Family Hopes for Safe Return
Kinnari Patel and Mihir Patel, originally from Vadodara and living in New Zealand for 30 years, are missing amid Nepal’s flash floods. They had travelled via Singapore for the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage and… pic.twitter.com/OvudoFgg3a
— Our Vadodara (@ourvadodara) August 27, 2026
In the United States, Shashidharan Sreedharan has spent the past two days trying to find his wife Rekha and their 14-year-old daughter Rashi, who were returning from their Mount Kailash pilgrimage when the floods struck the Nepal-Tibet border region.
“We are desperately waiting for any good news about their whereabouts,” Sreedharan told ANI, saying the family last spoke to them on August 26.
#WATCH | New York, USA: On his wife and daughter being missing in the Nepal flash flood, a local, Shashidharan Sreedharan, says, “My wife and my 14-year-old daughter were two of the many pilgrims who went on the Mount Kailash trip…we are desperately waiting for any good news… pic.twitter.com/ALTvqOP4Is
— ANI (@ANI) August 28, 2026
And for another Indian-origin family in the US, the last call came just hours before the disaster.
Venus Rajnikant Patel, a 45-year-old Indian-born US citizen, had called his brother and parents from his hotel on the Nepalese side of the border. He showed them his room and spoke about how excited he was to cross into Tibet. He had been planning the pilgrimage for two years, according to his brother Dennis Patel, the Associated Press reported.
Then the flash flood swept through the area.
These families are among many across India and the US waiting for news of relatives caught in the devastating floods along the Nepal-Tibet border. Around 320 Indian nationals remain uncontactable, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday. Around 400 Indian nationals on the Chinese side of the border are safe and in touch with their families, while another 96 who had been stranded there have crossed into Nepal by land, the ministry said.
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The MEA also said around 100 people of Indian origin holding other nationalities remain uncontactable.
The figures are still being reconciled as authorities receive information from different sources and work to establish who has been rescued, who remains stranded and who is still unaccounted for.
543
Dead — Nepal (538) and Tibet (5) *
1,535
Missing — Nepal (977) and Tibet (558) *
~320
Indians missing — India’s MEA
3,742
Rescued in Nepal
* These totals add separate Nepali and Chinese government counts for two different places. They are an indicative scale, not reconciled figures — the lists may overlap. Nepal’s toll is the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority’s 538; Nepal Police put it higher, at 547. The panels below keep the two countries apart.
Gyirong Port & Rasuwagadhi — China–Nepal border: before & after
Apr. 19, 2024 Border complex intact — port buildings, highway and river bridge in place
Aug. 27, 2026 Buildings, bridge and highway gone — valley floor buried under flood debris
Before-and-after satellite views of the China–Nepal border area around Gyirong Port and Rasuwagadhi, after the flash flood. Imagery: Vantor · Comparison built with Knight Lab JuxtaposeJS · The Indian Express. The two frames are 28 months apart; some change visible between them predates the August 2026 flood.
▲
Three separate datasets — do not add them together. Nepal’s NDRRMA and police counts · India’s MEA figures, which span both sides of the border · China/Tibet government figures for Gyirong County. Each covers a different population, location and stage of verification.
India — the numbers explained
IND
Indians affected — where they are
All figures from India’s Ministry of External Affairs, Friday
Still missing
Across the flood-hit border area
~320
Stranded but safe — Chinese side
Awaiting evacuation from Tibet
400+
Crossed into Nepal by land
Out of the worst-affected zone
96
Flown home to Delhi
First group, received by EAM S Jaishankar
21
?Why are so many Indians on the Chinese side?
Large numbers of Indian pilgrims have been travelling to Tibet for the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra, which resumed as India–China ties improved. Some were reportedly inside the immigration building at the Tibet–Nepal border when the flood struck. That is why India’s count spans both countries — and why it moves faster than either government’s local list. The MEA put the number uncontactable at 290 on Thursday and around 320 missing on Friday.
Missing foreign nationals — top nationalities
India’s bar is the MEA’s Friday figure (around 320) and covers Indians missing on both sides of the border. Every other bar comes from the Nepal Foreign Ministry’s verified list of 596 foreign nationals missing in Nepal — a list that has not been refreshed since Thursday. The bars are not like-for-like.
Also missing — 33 countries total
9
8–9
8
8
6
6
5
5
4
3
3
2
China & Tibet — a separate crisis
CHNChina/Tibet figures — different location, different dataset
5
Dead in Gyirong County, Tibet (CCTV, up from 3)
558
Missing in Gyirong County (Tibet emergency management dept)
260
Foreigners among the missing — nationalities not released
More than 1,000 people — 555 tourists and 499 residents — have been evacuated from Gyirong, and Chinese state media say no tourists remain stranded. Beijing says it is coordinating with embassies on the nationalities of the 260 missing foreigners. These figures cover a different location and different categories from Nepal’s and should not be added to them.
What caused it
▲A glacier collapse, high in the Himalayas
Preliminary findings point to a large chunk of glacier breaking off and temporarily damming a river, with the backed-up water surging downstream hours later. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said assessments by Chinese and Nepali experts indicate the collapse occurred in Nepal. The US Geological Survey logged a magnitude 5.2 glacier collapse on Wednesday, based on nearby seismic stations, long-period seismic waves and satellite imagery. Scientists say it is too early to tie this specific event to global warming, but that warming raises the odds of such disasters — and the Himalayas are heating considerably faster than most of the world.
The danger isn’t over — the barrier lake is already overflowing
▲
Level-IV alert: barrier lake at the Chhochen Khola–Purepu Tsangpo confluence
●
~2 million cubic metres already held
Chinese authorities estimate about 2 million cubic metres has accumulated behind the natural barrier that formed where the two rivers meet.
▲
~3 million more cubic metres expected over three days
China sounded a Level-IV alert late Thursday, warning of a high risk that the barrier breaches and floods downstream areas.
■
The lake is already overflowing
Nepal Police say the barrier on the Tibet side has burst again and have told rescuers and residents to stay on high alert and move to higher ground. Spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle: it hasn’t stopped.
The wider toll
93,000
People affected and in great needIFRC
17,000
Children needing urgent aidUNICEF
38
Schools destroyed (18) or damaged (20)UNICEF
8
Health workers missing; 6 facilities damagedWHO
Some areas remain reachable only by helicopter, so initial assessments are incomplete. Nepal has mobilised 14,829 security personnel; 680 rescuers have reached the worst-hit zone on the Chinese side.
■Reading these numbers
The combined missing total (1,535), the Nepal-only figure (977), the Gyirong figure (558), the foreign nationals list (596) and India’s MEA count (around 320) are not subsets of each other — they come from different agencies covering different areas at different verification stages. India’s figure is the only one that spans both sides of the border. Nepal’s own death toll is reported two ways: 538 by the disaster authority, 547 by police. Every number here is preliminary and moving while search operations continue.
Sources: Nepal National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority · Nepal Police (spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle) · Nepal Foreign Ministry (verified missing list) · India Ministry of External Affairs · Tibet Autonomous Region emergency management department · China Foreign Ministry (spokesperson Lin Jian) · CCTV · Xinhua · Global Times · China Ministry of Industry and Information Technology · IFRC (David Fisher) · UNICEF · WHO · US Geological Survey · PTI · AP · Reuters · Foreign ministry statements: Australia, Ukraine, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea. All figures preliminary.
21 Indian pilgrims return to Delhi
There was some relief for families on Friday when 21 Indian nationals from Tamil Nadu who had travelled to Nepal for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra returned to India after being rescued. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar received them at Delhi airport.
The MEA had earlier said that 63 Indian nationals working at the Trishuli-1 hydropower project had also been rescued. Another 96 Indians who had been stranded on the Chinese side subsequently crossed into Nepal by land.
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The latest developments have provided some relief to families, but hundreds of Indians and people of Indian origin are still waiting for confirmation that their relatives are safe.
Indian-Americans among about 90 Americans unaccounted for
The Indian-American dimension extends beyond individual families. US officials said about 90 American citizens remained unaccounted for after the floods, the AP reported. The US State Department said it was not aware of any American deaths and that three Americans had been rescued. Many of those unaccounted for were on pilgrimages to Mount Kailash.
Among them is Venus Patel, the Indian-born US citizen whose family had spoken to him shortly before the floods.
Another is 72-year-old Jitendra Patel, a Long Island resident travelling with a Hindu pilgrimage group to Mount Kailash, according to his son Sunny Patel.
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This photo provided by Jolene Gosha shows Venus Patel, left, walking his friend, Pratik Jhaveri, centre, down the wedding aisle in Collinsville, Ill., June 18, 2022. (AP)
Jitendra last contacted his family on WhatsApp on Wednesday morning local time to say that he had crossed into Tibet. His son later learned that his father had been in the area hit by the flooding. Messages sent to Jitendra have not been delivered, AP reported.
Nepal’s Consul General in New York, Dadhiram Bhandari, told ANI that families of several Americans of Indian origin had contacted the consulate. Information about more than 25 missing US citizens had been passed to Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he said, adding that most appeared to be of Indian origin.
22 Americans linked to Isha Foundation unaccounted for
The Isha Foundation, an India-based spiritual organisation founded by Jaggi Vasudev, also known as Sadhguru, has been trying to establish the whereabouts of people travelling with its pilgrimage groups.
Sadhguru said in a post on X that 77 people returning from Mount Kailash with groups organised by the foundation were at an immigration centre in Gyirong, Tibet, when the floods struck.
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Leslie Crespi, a community liaison for the foundation’s US campus, told the AP that 22 of those people were Americans affiliated with the foundation. Three volunteers supporting the trekkers were also at the immigration centre when the flood hit.
U.S. citizen Deepak Dandu said his wife, Sridevi Vejella, is among those missing in Nepal after a catastrophic, deadly torrent of floods and mud swept through several communities following a glacial collapse on Wednesday.
Vejella had just finished a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash,… pic.twitter.com/oWAqL6m1WB
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 28, 2026
Crespi said the foundation had communicated with the group coordinator at about 9:05 am Nepal time, when the group had arrived at the immigration centre. About nine minutes later, the flash flood hit.
The Isha Foundation is based in India, while its US campus, the Isha Institute of Inner-sciences, is a yoga and meditation retreat centre near McMinnville, Tennessee.
The disaster is still unfolding
The search for missing Indians and Indian-Americans is taking place amid an enormous rescue operation across the Nepal-Tibet border.
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Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said the death toll had reached 538 on Friday, with 977 people still missing. Nepal Police later put the death toll at 547. China said five people had died and 558 remained missing in Tibet. The different figures are being updated as authorities continue search and verification operations.
In Tibet’s Gyirong county, Chinese authorities said 260 of those missing had been identified as foreign nationals, although their nationalities had not been released.
Chinese authorities also temporarily suspended rescue operations because of the threat from a newly formed barrier lake upstream. By Friday afternoon, officials assessed the risk as manageable and rescue operations resumed.
The lake had accumulated about 2 million cubic metres of water, with another 3 million cubic metres potentially flowing into it over the following three days, according to Chinese authorities.
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The flooding has been linked to a glacier collapse in the Himalayas, although scientists are still examining the precise sequence of events that produced the catastrophic surge.
(With inputs from ANI, AP)
