Subhrasree Chakraborty, a 43-year-old medical technologist, is one of at least 290 Indians unaccounted for after flash floods struck near the Nepal-Tibet border. She was on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a revered destination for Hindus, when contact with her family suddenly stopped.
Her husband, Sudipto Bhattacharya, last heard from her at 08:03 on Wednesday. She messaged that her group was waiting to enter China. Since then, silence. "After 08:03am, what happened? We don't know anything, " Bhattacharya said, worried sick about what might have happened to his wife.
The Mount Kailash pilgrimage had just resumed last year after being suspended due to the pandemic and geopolitical tensions between India and China. Many Indians make this trek each year. Subhrasree was traveling with around 30 others. Her journey began on August 21, and she had been eager about the trip, sharing photos from Kathmandu with her husband.
On August 25, the group departed Kathmandu for Syabrubesi, a small mountain settlement. A landslide delayed them, but Subhrasree had told her husband the skies had cleared. The next morning, she left her hotel early, and after handling Nepal's immigration processes, she was waiting to enter Tibet.
Bhattacharya suspects his wife might have been near the Chinese immigration area when the floods came. He's been trying to reach out to other pilgrims and the tour operator with no success. "Have they been rescued? Was this group among those rescued in China?" he wonders, desperate for any news.
Another pilgrim, Rina Banerjee, 54, is also missing. Her family doesn't know if she was on the Nepali or Chinese side when contact stopped. Rina, a private tutor from Kolkata, was traveling solo with the same pilgrimage group. Her nephew, Dwaipayan Mukherjee, remembers video calls with her from Kathmandu, where she appeared cheerful and excited.
Rina had mentioned a landslide that delayed their journey by four hours. The last image her family received was a group photo at the Nepal immigration center, confirming she'd completed her departure formalities.
Both Subhrasree and Rina are among those listed as missing by Nepal's government. But this list offers little comfort to their families, who remain in the dark about where their loved ones might be.
The Kolkata-based tour operator has not yet provided any information regarding the group's situation. For both families, the pilgrimage has turned into a nightmare, leaving them with the haunting question: did the women safely make it across the border?
