A Buddhist monk looks at photographs of missing and deceased people pasted on wall outside Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, following flash floods and a mudslide, in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Sept. 1, 2026.
Monika Malla
REUTERS
Two professors at the University of California, Davis are among the thousands still missing after catastrophic flash floods swept through parts of Nepal on Aug. 26. Nearly 1,300 people have been killed in the disaster and more than 5,000 remain missing, according to Nepal’s disaster management agency.
Rao and Vasu Unnava, both professors at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, were staying in a hotel in Timure, Nepal, when the flash floods occurred, according to a message from the university’s chancellor and provost. Only a few kilometers from the border of Nepal and Tibet, they have not been located or heard from since then.
“We continue to hope Rao and Vasu will be found safe and sound,” Chancellor Gary May and Provost Mary Croughan wrote. “Please keep them, their children, and extended family in your thoughts and prayers.”
The University of California’s global risk management, security and crisis response contractor is working with authorities and agencies in Nepal, along with the U.S. State Department, to locate the Unnavas, they said. The couple’s family, meanwhile, is seeking assistance from U.S. government agencies.
Rao Unnava stepped down as dean of the Graduate School of Management on July 1 after serving in that position for a decade. Currently on sabbatical to work with the UC Davis Innovation Institute for Food and Health, he is slated to return to the school’s faculty as a marketing professor next year. Vasu Unnava is an adjunct associate professor at the same school, where she teaches marketing and studies consumer behavior.
“They have touched countless through their work at the Graduate School of Management and throughout their careers in higher education. We are grateful to both Rao and Vasu for their contributions that extend far beyond GSM and UC Davis,” May and Croughan wrote.
In an interview with the Associated Press, the Unnavas’ daughter said her parents had set out on a retirement trip and were excited to spend two months in India with family after visiting Mount Kailash. The Himalayan peak in southwestern Tibet holds sacred significance for several religions including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
“They were so, so excited. My dad was talking about finally getting to spend time with his mother,” Vaasavi Unnava, a 31-year-old PhD student, told the AP.
The Aug. 26 disaster, likely caused by a high-altitude glacier collapse on the border between Nepal and Tibet, is estimated to have caused at least $2.5 billion in damage to infrastructure and property. Search and rescue operations remain underway in the affected regions, where more than 21,000 security personnel have been deployed.
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Tarini Mehta is The Sacramento Bee’s higher education reporter. Previously, she covered education in Napa County for The Press Democrat through the California Local News Fellowship. An alumna of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, she has written for publications such as the Boston Globe, the Bay Area News Group, The Diplomat, India Today, The Hindu and The Print.