US families hold out hope for relatives lost in Nepal floods

By South China Morning Post | Created at 2026-08-29 05:21:43 | Updated at 2026-08-29 06:26:26 1 hour ago

Mukti Patel has huddled with family and friends at her parents’ Richmond, Virginia, home since her dad, sister and two other relatives went missing in the catastrophic

flash floods along the Nepal-China border.

She knows the hotel they were staying in was swept away. But as she shared memories of them on Friday, she caught herself.

“I shouldn’t talk in past tense yet,” she said. “We don’t know anything.”

As rescuers continued pulling survivors from the mud, family members of some of the more than 2,000 people missing in the disaster were still holding out hope – however dim – that their loved ones survived.

 EPA

Anxious relatives wait for information at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu on Friday. Photo: EPA

On a Zoom call Thursday night, some family members wanted to know if they could reach the site and whether a relative might be trapped inside an air pocket, said Sanket Pandey, managing director of Himalayan Glacier Adventure and Travel Company.

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