US Couple Recounts Miraculous Nepal Escape As Missing Toll Goes Past 3,000
'I could see this monster thing coming down, and I didn't know if it was water. I thought it was fire.'
A couple from San Francisco recounted their harrowing escape during flash flooding on the Nepal-Tibet border, where at least 600 people have died and over 3,000 remain missing. Anjana Raja, 67, and her partner, Pattabiraman Venkatesan, were on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet when a glacier collapse sent torrents of water rushing down the Trishuli River on Wednesday, August 26th.
Raja described the scene as terrifying, noting, "I knew I was going to die." She recounted grabbing her partner and urging him to run as they fled their bus, jumping off and climbing to higher ground. The floodwaters were so powerful that houses were destroyed and people were swept away. Raja saw death firsthand and described their night spent in a goat shed with other survivors before being airlifted the following day.
Many of the missing were on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists, and others. U.S. State Department has been contacted by Newsweek regarding the missing American citizens, with Dan Hovey, Vice President of Global Emergency Response Direct Relief, expressing concern over secondary health risks faced by those displaced, including diarrheal and other communicable diseases.
Rescue efforts have been ongoing for four days, with Nepali authorities reporting 676 deaths and nearly 3,000 people missing, including around 90 Americans. The immediate priority remains locating the missing and providing relief, as newly formed, overflowing lakes could trigger further flooding.
Written by urgent.news from Newsweek's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
