FRIENDS DEVASTATED AS HEARTBREAKING FINAL TEXT FROM MISSING MEDICAL STUDENT IS REVEALED..! – Young man messaged a friend in Australia about himself and his family just before Nepal floods struck
A young medical student missing in Nepal texted a friend in Australia that he and his family were trying to get to higher ground shortly before floods swept the area.
The Iyer family – Rudhra, 20, Rishab, 23, Lakshmi, 49, and Sreedharan, 52 – were in the Syabrubesi region of the Himalayas, which is further downstream from where an ice avalanche triggered flash flooding last Wednesday, and they remain missing.
The alarm had been raised for people in that area by those further upstream, and relative Anand Easwaran believes the family may have been able to get further up the mountain range to seek shelter.
They were part of the Himalayan Glacier Adventure Group, and Mr Easwaran has travelled to Nepal in an effort to trace their footsteps after they left the Royal Himalayan Hotel that morning.
Mr Easwaran told The Australian that Rudhra had texted a friend just 15 minutes before the disaster that his family were ‘stuck’ and expecting a ‘landslide’ to hit.
He said they may have been caught in traffic shortly after leaving their hotel, but that the phone of another member of the group did ping later that day higher up in the mountains, so he remained hopeful.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Thursday confirmed more humanitarian aid was on the way, following the deployment of a Royal Australian Air Force C-17A Globemaster III earlier this week.
‘We all understand the scale of this disaster; we’ve seen this through the media, the images are harrowing,’ Wong said.
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From left to right Rudhra Sreedharan Iyer, Sridharan Iyer, Lakshmi Roopa Sridhar and Rishabh Sridharan Iyer
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A massive humanitarian recovery effort is underway in Nepal after the floodsAmong the Australian team will be 15 specialist drone operators.
The latest death toll for the disaster was 1,252.
Nepal Police on Thursday night confirmed 4,798 people remain missing following a harrowing flash flood last Wednesday, August 26.
Among the missing are at least 38 Australians.
Wong said the government held ‘grave concerns’ for them.
‘Those concerns deepen every day, every hour that they remain unaccounted for,’ she said.
‘We all hold on to hope, and we must hold on to hope.’
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the team will also include firefighters from NSW and Queensland.
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Penny Wong announced further assistance to Nepal including specialist drone operators
‘I thank the state governments of New South Wales and Queensland for that,’ he said.
‘They’ll leave Australia in the coming days as part of a 15-person disaster assistance response team.
‘This adds to the 19 Australian personnel who’ve already been dispatched to Nepal.’
Australians found alive
Authorities have confirmed the rescue of six Australians.
That includes 26-year-old Cara Severino, who managed to escape the flood zone by travelling with a group on a tractor through a national park.
She was rescued on Sunday; another was rescued on Tuesday, followed by four on Wednesday.
It is unclear who the remaining five safe Australians are, but one was found in Nepal, another in China, and three others outside the disaster zone.
They were reported missing after failing to contact loved ones after the flood and had been unable to make contact since. It’s understood their families were unaware they were safe.
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Cara Severino (above) was found on Sunday
Desperate search
At least 38 Australians remain missing in Nepal and Tibet. Many were travelling with tour groups to climb Mount Kailash, considered a sacred place in multiple religions.
The Iyer Family
A friend of the Iyer family, Viswanathan Venkatachalam, described them as ‘angels in human form’ and very beloved.
‘We have no idea where they are stranded, and nobody’s telling us where they are or where they’ve reached.’
Sarada Viswanathan, the partner of Rishab Iyer, has been hosting a makeshift headquarters in her home for loved ones to gather and search for information on the family’s whereabouts.
They’ve been monitoring official Nepali websites, calling embassies and nearby hospitals and camps, and recently got in contact with the owners of a Jeep company the Iyers rented vehicles from.
‘It’s still just a crumb, and we’re trying to follow that trail, but we need a lot more crumbs and a lot more help to get us there,’ Ms Viswanathan told The Guardian.
The Muralitharan Family
Chandrasekaran Muralitharan – aged 47, Shylaja Muralitharan – aged 42, Ashwin Muralitharan – aged 14, Aarush Muralitharan – aged 11.
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Chandrasekaran Muralitharan and Shylaja Muralitharan
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Aarush and Ashwin Muralitharan
The Muralitharans were described by a neighbour as the ‘kindest people you’ll ever meet’ and were checked into the now-destroyed Kailash Hotel, in Timure.
‘Their last phone call was around 6.47am in the morning on the 26th of August – she told our family that they were just going to go have breakfast,’ Ms Kowshikan told the Sydney Morning Herald.
‘Knowing my family, I don’t think they would have just sat and waited at the hotel. They might have gone out to explore. There was a bazaar, there’s a hydroplant, there are tracks and trails,’ Ms Kowshikan said.
‘We want search and rescue efforts to continue along any possible routes that they may have travelled.
‘I think there’s still opportunity and there’s still time for them to be found and rescued.’
The Sharmas
Krishna Sharma, 50, and Umesh Sharma, 55.
The couple’s 23-year-old son, Chitrak Sharma, was in Sydney when he heard about the flood.
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Krishna and Umesh Sharma remain missing in Nepal following the devastating floods
‘The first thing I did was I tried calling. Of course, nothing,’ he told ABC’s 7.30.
‘I tried calling someone else that I know was with them. No contact was able to be made. Still, I didn’t take it too seriously because I mean, just what are the odds?’
Chitrak has since flown to Delhi, India, and is staying with extended family while waiting for further news.
‘I’ve thought about it, and just for assumption’s sake I have brought some DNA samples with me. I brought hair in case but I don’t want to think too much about that right now,’ he said.
‘My hope is that we find them safe and sound.’
Rajeswari Sharma, 64
Ms Sharma is from Cherrybrook, north Sydney.
The Venkatramans
Venkatraman Balakrishnan, 52, and Chitra Venkatraman, 46, had messaged their son, Akash Venkatraman, for his 22nd birthday just three days before the flood hit.
He and his 17-year-old brother, who is preparing for the Higher School Certificate exam, are trying to keep a sense of normalcy in their western Sydney home while hoping their parents will reach out.
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Chitra Venkatraman
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Venkatraman Balakrishnan
‘What if I graduate and they’re not there? What if I get my first job and they’re not there?’ Akash told The Guardian on Thursday.
‘Because everything you do, you do to make them proud.’
Sruthi Chandrasekaran, 36
Ms Chandrasekaran is from The Ponds in northwest Sydney.
Kumar Ramaswamy Sampath, 61
Mr Sampath is a retired engineer from Glen Waverley, east Melbourne. His wife earlier confirmed she wasn’t able to reach him following the flood.
Mohapatra Sandeep, 39, and Sahu Sidharthi Kumari, 43
The couple are from Wantirna South and were pictured in Kathmandu on August 25 with Rubila Rath, a close friend, said loved ones are hoping they survived the disaster.
‘They were beautiful souls and we just want them back. She was like a sister to me, and he was like my brother-in-law. I’m just holding on to hope that we’ll see them both again soon.’
Arpan Mithilal Kothari, 40, Karan Bhardwaj, 40, and Bhavinkumar Rajnikant Raval, 41
Mr Kothari, Mr Bhardwaj and Mr Raval travelled together to Nepal for the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage.
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Karan Bhardwaj
Jony Raval, Mr Raval’s brother-in-law, flew to Kathmandu this week to look for the group.
‘I came here to fulfil a promise to my sister. That I won’t leave here without her husband,’ Jony told the ABC.
Mr Raval’s wife and Jony’s sister, Aarti Raval, has been trying to find information from their home in Brisbane.
From looking at the tour group’s statements and her husband’s last photos, she believes he was last on the Pasang Lhamu Highway.
‘Bhavin is still somewhere in that mud area just above the immigration office and no rescue search has been going there,’ Ms Raval said.
‘All I want is someone to go through helicopter, drop some people inside the bush area and go and find those people who are stuck in the mud. I’m sure they are there and still breathing.’
Mr Bhardwaj is a Brisbane-based member of the RAAF.
Kanagamah Sundrasan, 60, and Suhasini Reddy Kandimalla, 44
The two Brisbane women, from Springfield in the city’s west, had visited several sites around Nepal before starting the tour.
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Suhasini Kandimalla and Kanagamah Sundrasan
During a final phone call with her husband minutes before the flood, Ms Sundrasan said they were over a kilometre from the Gyirong Immigration Centre – which was wiped out.
‘What we know is that she has been dropped near to the (immigration centre) and we understand she was going to walk about 30 minutes to get there,’ friend Ajay Kakumani told the Daily Telegraph.
‘That is the last whereabouts that we know.
‘She last spoke to her husband on Wednesday. She was saying that she was going to go to the centre. That is the last time we heard from her.’
Sumi Adhikari, 41
Ms Adhikari, a mother-of-two from Bardia in south-west Sydney, migrated to Australia from Nepal in 2012 to work as a network engineer.
Her husband, Nava Pandey, has travelled to Nepal to help search for her.
‘As a person she was someone with strong willpower, much attached to the kids, kind and looked at life in a positive way, was spiritual and later was a regular on meditation,’ he said.
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Sumi Adhikari with her husband, Nava Pandey
Reshma Bhavin Patel, 46
Ms Patel, from Newcastle, was trekking with Isha Sacredwalks Group and has not been heard from since the flood.
She is the mother of a 14-year-old girl and ten-year-old boy and worked for Canterbury-Bankstown Council
Her husband has travelled to Nepal to search for her.
‘We are trying on our end but it would be good if we can get more resources and information from the Australian government,’ Ms Patel’s sister, Vaishali Kapadiya, told The Australian.
‘We need help to locate her. So far we haven’t been contacted by anyone. We feel helpless.’
Bharat Mangwani, 42
Mr Mangwani is a father-of-two and engineer based in Sydney.
Loved ones haven’t heard from him since the flood. He was last known to be at the Nepal-Tibet border.
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Bharat Mangwani
Luke Costanzo, 30
Mr Costanzo, from Perth, was headed back to Kathmandu on the final day of his tour when the flood hit.
His family said in a statement on Tuesday that they were hoping for a ‘miracle’.
‘It is with heavy hearts that we share our dear son and brother, Luke Costanzo, is one of the Australians still unaccounted for in Nepal following the flooding disaster last week,’ they said.
‘Luke is an extremely strong, compassionate, disciplined and spiritual person.
‘Once he makes a decision, he commits to it fully, and he was so excited to be visiting Mount Kailash on a pilgrimage trek.’
Shivaprasad Rakesh Nayaka, 39
Mr Nayaka is a mechanical engineer from Wantirna South, in east Melbourne.
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Shivaprasad Rakesh Nayaka
He had recently returned from a climb up Mount Kailash and checked into an immigration office on the Nepal-Tibet border just ten minutes before the flood hit.
Mr Nayaka moved to Australia in 2008 and owns a business in Glen Waverley.
Bhoomi Mahendrakumar Patel, 40
Gopi Krishna Naidu Agastya, 45
Mr Agastya is a software engineer and father-of-two from Parramatta, west Sydney.
His friend, Pavan Kurucheti, said he was at an immigration building on the Nepal-Tibet border when the flood hit.
Uday Shivamurthy, 50, and Kripa Shivamurthy, 55
The couple, from Sydney, were travelling with The Trekkers’ Society.
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Uduy and Kripa Shivamurthy
Uday is an architect while Kripa is an accountant.
Their niece, Navya Nataraj, said they’d completed the Kailash pilgrimage several times before.
It’s understood they were waiting to cross the border into Nepal from Tibet when the flood struck.
‘We have been getting conflicting reports,’ Ms Nataraj told CNN.
‘But then they released aerial images. We are distraught and devastated.’
Narayan Panthi, 46
Mr Panthi moved to Brisbane from Nepal but had travelled back to his home country for a spiritual trip to Mount Kailash.
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Narayan Panthi
He was staying at the Sonam Lodge in Ghatte Khola, near the Nepal-Tibet border.
In a video posted to his social media just hours before the flood, Mr Panthi had described the upcoming ‘beautiful experiences’.
‘It’s still early morning here, around quarter to six, and everything is so peaceful,’ he said.
‘According to our guide, this is only the beginning, actually, even less than the beginning, of our fun.
‘We still have so many beautiful experiences waiting ahead of us.’
Renee Spry
Ms Spry, from Queensland, was travelling with The Trekkers’ Society and was near the Nepal-Tibet border when the flash flood hit.
Her sister, Dr Clair Spry, said their family hoped she ‘miraculously’ survived.
‘She really was a spiritual person, and this trip for her was like the journey of a lifetime to go to such a special place with this group,’ she said.
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Renee Spry
‘She was the type of person who was just so kind, and she did change a lot of people’s perspective on sort of the way we’re running life. And she was just so generous, you know.
‘Yeah, she was actually a disability support worker, so just one of these really giving people.’
