A family is desperately searching for information about an American citizen who went missing following catastrophic flash floods and mudslides in Nepal and China's Tibet Autonomous Region. Jitendra Patel, who was on a spiritual pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, is among thousands unaccounted for after the disaster.
Sunny Patel, Jitendra's son, realized his father might have been caught in the disaster after watching viral footage of the torrent. "I watched the video and I just thought of how horrific it was. And then... probably 30 seconds later, it registered," he said in an interview. "I texted my mom, and she was hoping that we hadn't seen the video. But of course, it was so viral by then... My mom responded and said, 'That's exactly where he was,' actually."
The last known contact with Jitendra Patel was a phone call on Wednesday morning, local time. At that point, he believed his father had already crossed the border from Nepal into China, though this has not been confirmed.
The family has faced challenges obtaining information, particularly from the Chinese side of the border. They have reached out to embassies in Kathmandu and Beijing, as well as the U.S. State Department, and have filed missing person reports with multiple agencies.
"We're trying to go on these media segments and get the awareness out there that there are people on the Chinese side that we aren't getting a ton of information about," Sunny Patel stated.
Experts suggest the flooding was caused by a large chunk of ice breaking off a glacier and falling into the Lhende Khola River, triggering massive waves of rock, ice, and debris. Current figures indicate over 600 people have died and more than 3,000 remain missing, with over 4,000 rescued.
Jitendra Patel was traveling with a group heading to Mount Kailash, a popular pilgrimage site. According to his son, the group had experienced car trouble the day before, which may have altered their timing and placed them in the path of the flood.
Search and rescue operations were temporarily suspended on Saturday due to rain and heavy fog. Authorities are also monitoring two newly formed lakes upstream that were created by the disaster, with one experiencing overflow.
Sunny Patel described his father as a kind and optimistic individual who "believed in the goodness of everybody, probably to a fault" and "lived with kindness in his heart."