Nepal floods : 10 Thane pilgrims untraceable, families cling to faint hopes
Hope is turning into anguish for families as they wait helplessly for any word on 10 pilgrims from Thane in Maharashtra who remain untraceable after flash floods tore through the Nepal‑China border, sweeping away checkpoints and severing all communication.
While two tourists returned home safely, the remaining 10 pilgrims, who were on the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, have been missing after floodwaters struck near the Timure Chinese immigration checkpoint on August 26, destroying local communication infrastructure.
Only Prakash Shantaram Mane and his wife Pratibha from Dombivli in the district have returned home safely so far.
Distraught relatives of the missing persons have appealed to authorities for urgent intervention as a week-long communication blackout persists across the affected border areas.
"We have been unable to make contact with them since the time the floods hit the area," Sanjay Patankar, whose brother Satish Vinayak Patankar and sister-in-law Rekha Patankar are among those missing, said on Wednesday.
The remaining untraceable pilgrims identified by the district disaster management cell are Samir Mukund Joshi and Aparna Samir Joshi (Naupada), Sunil Sudarshan Subhedar (Dombivli), Sanjay Rajmal Patil and Nalini Sanjay Patil (Kalyan West), Rajanish Raghunath Natu (Thane West), Yashas Bhand (Navi Mumbai), and Abhishek Ghone (Kalyan West).
Thane district authorities said they were coordinating with disaster response teams and tour operators in Nepal to locate the missing pilgrims.
Flash floods, triggered by a collapse or avalanche of ice and rock near the Nepal-Tibet border, devastated towns and villages in northern and central Nepal on August 26. The Bhotekoshi River, which flows south from the Himalayan border region, carried the floodwaters downstream, sweeping away homes, vehicles, roads and bridges and damaging hydropower projects.
The death toll from the devastating flash floods has gone over 1,000, with security forces recovering more bodies from eight districts of the Himalayan country. Around 4,000 people, including 583 foreigners and several security personnel, remain missing, according to authorities.
(Inputs from PTI)
