{"id":873366,"date":"2026-08-30T03:10:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T03:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873366\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T03:10:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T03:10:21","slug":"families-balance-hope-and-despair-in-race-to-find-survivors-in-nepal-as-41-australians-still-missing-nepal-tibet-flood-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873366\/","title":{"rendered":"Families balance hope and despair in race to find survivors in Nepal as 41 Australians still missing | Nepal-Tibet flood disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of them are young, some old; most of them appear to be men. Some of them could be sleeping, except for the mud that covers their bodies. Some, it seems, would be impossible to recognise even if you knew them well.<\/p>\n

Every few hours Nepalese authorities hang pictures of the deceased, who have not been identified, on a wall at the back of a teaching hospital in Kathmandu.<\/p>\n

Saluja, a young woman who did not give her last name, stood among a group of more than 100 people watching. Her cousin, 31, was not on the wall that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very hard to identify their faces,\u201d Saluja says.<\/p>\n

As she speaks, some in the crowd take videos to send to other relatives; they stand around comparing them, trying to work out whether the person in the photo is their loved one. The bodies have a piece of paper lying on top of them, showing which district they were found in, with a number to contact.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy cousin is missing,\u201d Saluja says. \u201cHe worked in a hydro power plant \u2026 Since the flood, we have not been able to contact him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first area to get affected, so we really don\u2019t know. But we are hoping for the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

While she talked, her other cousin, his older brother, was on the plane flying home from Australia. Since Wednesday, Kathmandu has swelled with international visitors \u2013 not tourists but people looking for their loved ones.<\/p>\n

The Nepalese government has deployed about 15,000 personnel \u2013 from the army to the police \u2013 to move up the valley and into the areas decimated by the flood, hoping to find survivors.<\/p>\n

A drone view of the aftermath of flash flooding at the confluence of the Trishuli and Tadi rivers in the Nuwakot district, Nepal. Photograph: Rajesh Kumar Singh\/AP<\/p>\n

While they battle arduous search conditions \u2013 areas completely cut off, roads destroyed, bridges washed away and a new lake threatening to burst \u2013 loved ones from Australia rush to Nepal to be with their families. They come to chase leads and to wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy older cousin, he\u2019s a doctor in Australia, and his wife is a dentist,\u201d Saluja says. \u201cSo they both are coming back. They\u2019re going to try with the search and to be with the family as well. They obviously want to be with the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been four days since the glacier collapsed high in the Himalayas, sending a wall of water, ice and mud down to destroy everything in its path.<\/p>\n

The number of people killed has risen to 669, with nearly 3,000 people lost. On the Chinese side, more than 550 people are unaccounted for. Forty-two Australians are still missing, according to Dfat, including six identified as missing by Chinese authorities.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, New South Wales man Michael Keats was confirmed to be one of them. He had reached the Nepal-Tibet border just moments before disaster struck, his family said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Australian\u2019s missing in Nepal. Clockwise from left – Karan Bhardwaj, Chitra Venkatraman, Venkatraman Balakrishnan, Sumi Adhikari and Family: Shylaja Muralitharan, Aarush Muralitharan, Ashwin Muralitharan & Chandrasekaran Muralitharan. Composite: Supplied by the families<\/p>\n

\u201cConfusion around the timing of the floods initially led us to believe our beautiful Michael would be safe in Kathmandu, preparing to fly home,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, it was confirmed relatively quickly by the Isha Foundation that Michael and his Kailash travel group had arrived at Gyirong Port on the Nepal-Tibet border just 10 minutes before the tragic floods hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keats\u2019 family said their thoughts and prayers were with everyone affected by the tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Michael] is gentle and kind, with a unique light that touches everyone lucky enough to know him,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Sagar Shrestha serves as the director of the Disaster and Crisis Management Department at the Nepal Red Cross Society in Kathmandu. He said the death toll could climb into the thousands.<\/p>\n

A map showing the flood zone in Nepal<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBut they are still finding survivors,\u201d he says. \u201cSome of them are being found in the jungle; they\u2019ve gone up the mountain and are being helicoptered out.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said there were 14 hydropower plants along the river, six of which were under construction. It\u2019s believed people could still be alive in the majority of them.<\/p>\n

One of the key issues has become \u201cthe dignified management of the dead\u201d, he says, as morgues and hospitals have filled up in some areas. According to local media, officials in the Chitwan district will collect DNA samples from 229 bodies that are starting to decay and are no longer identifiable, before burying them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is now the major concern,\u201d Shrestha says. \u201cAnd the second thing is that if we are not being able to manage the dead bodies, there could be some kind of health issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n

Sign up to Morning Mail<\/p>\n

Our Australian morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Since the crisis started, Sagar Pandey has barely slept. Pandey, the chief executive of the Himalaya Glacier Company, says 47 people from the trekking service are lost, including 15 Australians.<\/p>\n

He had Australians in two different locations: five people 1.5km from the border of Tibet and Nepal, who were meant to be coming back that morning after breakfast and another 10 who had left the Syabrubesi valley and were driving towards the border checkpoint.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe they were trapped because all three cars and jeeps are missing,\u201d he says. \u201cThere were a total of 14 people: three drivers and then one guide and 10 Australians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pandey has been spending his days going between the hospitals and checking in with the morgues to see if anyone on his tours has shown up. He is contacting family members of loved ones who are overseas and helping those who have just arrived. He has also been grieving his brother, who was guiding one of the treks.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, he chartered a helicopter to the disaster zone \u2013 he could see about 800 people standing on the mountain, who have all been rescued now, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a very low chance of survival that someone can still be alive,\u201d he says. \u201cThe next process is to find the body if possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has been one glimmer of hope \u2013 on Saturday afternoon the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, announced Australian woman Cara Severino was found safe after consular officials worked out where she was, and reached her via four-wheel drive.<\/p>\n

Australian woman Cara Severino, who had been unaccounted for following the devastating floods along the Nepal-China border, was safely located. Photograph: Office of Senator Penny Wong<\/p>\n

In a statement, Severino said she got out safely by teaming up with other survivors and using a tractor to drive out of the national park.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy heart goes out to all the Nepalese families who are grieving loved ones,\u201d she said. \u201cWe passed a guy hiking up to Thulu Safru who lost his whole family when their whole town was destroyed. It\u2019s just so devastating and undeserving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel for the families of those still missing; I know how much my family and friends went through.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday afternoon, the Australian ambassador to Nepal, Simon Ernst, was waiting at the airport. Six more members of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade\u2019s crisis response team had just arrived to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of damage to infrastructure, damage to power generation capability, damage to phone lines, telegraph poles, so communications is out,\u201d he says. \u201cEven the Nepali forces have lost contact with some of their personnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the nature of search, rescue, and recovery operations, there are people in the water, in the mud. They\u2019re obviously in danger should further flooding occur, and we can get heavy rainfall at any time given the monsoon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The disaster unfolded over three Nepalese districts \u2013 the one closest to Kathmandu has been the easiest to conduct search and rescue operations, because the accessibility is better and the valley is wider. Most Australians were last heard from in the top district, which was hit first by the flood.<\/p>\n

No one knows how long it will take to search the area and find everyone, Ernst says, but in the event an Australian is found, the embassy will be told immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that this is an incredibly difficult situation for [families],\u201d Ernst says. \u201cThey should feel confident that the Australian government and the Nepalese government are doing everything we can to find their loved ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are very welcome to maintain contact with the Department of Foreign Affairs through our contact numbers and our contact centre in Canberra. If they\u2019re here in Kathmandu, they\u2019re welcome to make contact directly with the embassy, including with me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of them are young, some old; most of them appear to be men. Some of them could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-873366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}