‘One per cent chance’: Siblings’ desperate search for missing Singaporean couple in Nepal disaster

KATHMANDU – Dipti Bhatnagar’s birthday is on Aug 26, but this year the joyous occasion turned tragic. Her sister Shubakshi Rawla, 49, and her husband Sumit Rawla, 53, both of whom are Singaporean, were reported missing in the devastating flash flood that struck northern Nepal and Tibet that day.

The couple were on their way to Tibet for the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage and last reported to be in or around Timure, a Nepali town close to the border with Tibet. The hotel where they had spent the previous night – Hotel Kailash in Gatte Khola near Timure – has reportedly been washed away in a torrent of mud and rocks.

The last few days have been a “living nightmare” for Bhatnagar, who has tried every possible means to trace her sister and brother-in-law. She flew in from New Delhi with her brother Khushal Abrol, 42, and landed in Kathmandu on Aug 28 to intensify their search.

“I want someone to really slap me and wake me up from this dream,” she said, seated in the lobby of their hotel in the Nepali capital.

But the siblings have refused to give up hope, looking at every possibility of locating the couple.

“You have to take that one per cent chance; maybe someone (still) has that last breath,” Bhatnagar, 45, told The Straits Times.

The brother-sister duo have been running pillar to post in Kathmandu, meeting officials from the Nepali government, foreign embassies and Sagar Pandey, founder of Himalayan Glaciers, the travel agency the Rawlas were travelling with.

There has been no news of the couple’s whereabouts or that of the 40-plus other individuals who were part of the Himalayan Glaciers group making its way to Tibet.

Pandey told ST that he last spoke to the guide who was with the group at 8am on Aug 26. They were having breakfast at Hotel Kailash at Gatte Khola, near the friendship bridge to Tibet.

“The hotel was totally destroyed in the floods,” said Pandey, clearly shaken.

The tragedy is personal to him. Also missing are his two Nepali cousins and staff in the group of 47 that included tourists from Singapore, Australia and Canada as well.

When ST spoke to him on the phone, Pandey was on his way back from a meeting with Nepal’s Ministry of Tourism, Tourism Board and the tourist police, who are coordinating rescue efforts mounted by the military.

He shared the last-known geolocations of the missing group members with the military, embassies and is tracking the updates in the central list published by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority. 

“We have no updates yet. It has been five days since the incident, so the possibility of survival is getting less and less,” he admitted.

Mistaken identity?

Given the scale and intensity of the tragedy, Bhatnagar and Abrol now worry that the Indian-origin Rawlas may mistakenly be labelled as Indian nationals if they are rescued in a condition where they are unable to speak and have no identity documents on them.

Any such misidentification on lists of those rescued, they added, risks throwing their search off-track, with survivors or bodies lying in one place while their families search for them somewhere else.

Many of the foreign nationals, including those from Singapore, Australia and Canada who were travelling to Tibet for the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage, are of Indian-origin.

“Yet, the list (of those rescued) which is coming is saying, we have rescued so many Indians, so many Nepalis, but no Australian, zero Canadian, zero Singaporean,” noted Abrol.

While acknowledging that the Nepali authorities had done a “fabulous job” of rescuing survivors and giving prompt updates on social media, he added that the government should also begin putting out photos of survivors so that family members can identify them. “At least, others will get hope seeing them.”

On the morning of Aug 30, Abrol and Bhatnagar were hurrying to get to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, a major public institution where many bodies and survivors have been brought in from flood-affected areas.

They said they wanted to look at survivors personally to check if the Rawlas are among them. “Now we just want to look at every ‘Indian’ who is saved,” added Bhatnagar, who also wants teams from foreign governments, including Singapore, to come to Nepal and hasten the relief and rescue missions.

Plea to tech giants

Moreover, with the window to recover survivors narrowing each day, the siblings have another special plea – they want tech giants to pool their resources to aid the search for those missing.

The Rawlas each had iPhones and Apple Watches, besides fitness bands from a firm called HumeHealth. Tracking the location of these devices and sharing them with rescue agencies can help pinpoint possible locations of those missing, including the Rawlas.

Abrol, said he had looked through 200-plus pictures of body parts and of dead bodies, something that has been “inhuman”. “They are beyond recognition,” he added, suggesting that tracking devices that may still be on some of these bodies could help bring closure for families.

“It’s on humanitarian grounds that the companies – these tech giants – should come forward and they should say this is the data that we have,” added Abrol. “It is a plea to the tech giants.”

The Rawlas have been based in Vancouver in Canada for over five years and have two young daughters. Sumit, who has a merchant navy background, works as a safety consultant for chemical tankers and Shubakshi is a nutritionist.

Shubakshi is also a Buddhist chanter and, according to Bhatnagar, she would even chant prayers for strangers during the Covid-19 pandemic, wishing them well. “She’s that kind of person,” said Bhatnagar. “I don’t think she should be taken away so soon.”

“I can’t bear the fact of losing her,” she added, her voice quivering and tears welling up in her eyes. “She’s my guide, my best friend and she is a wonderful human being.”