🙏🏾

With a profound sense of pain and regret, I wish to bring to your notice that there has been a terrible flash flood between Tibet and Nepal border and on the Nepali side, as per the Indian news reports, about 484 people have gone missing and on this side, we don't have any official information. Morning I left to go there personally and all phones are off, all telecommunications are down, roads are blocked, we are unable to go there. One of our groups, the S3 group that we met at Saga and also met them that when we were trekking up, they were coming down, of which 22 are from United States, 12 from Canada, 11 from Australia, 9 from United Kingdom, 4 from Germany, 3 from France, 3 from Nepal, 2 from Netherlands, 2 from New Zealand, 2 from Singapore, 2 from Spain, 1 each from Finland, Hungary, Israel, Lithuania, Philippines, Portugal, Russia and South Africa, a total of 80 and also this includes 34 male and 46 female participants and a few other volunteers who were camped in the nearby hotels, three volunteers and one doctor. I think the replacement doctor who came in just day before yesterday from the ashram but we have no any kind of official confirmation of any kind but looking at the scale of destruction, it looks bad. The same building where we were for the immigration just a week ago, that entire building is washed away and part of the town is washed away, we still don't know the other numbers, all communication is down, so we have no way. Within the hour, we informed all the embassies of these countries, both in India and Nepal and we've been active in this but there is really nothing much. At 9.05, we received a message from the group leader who is Ishanga Praveen who's been with us. At 9.05, he sent a message that they have arrived at the immigration. So after that, this happened at 9.14 and Praveen who was leading the team, who has been with us for more than two decades, full-time Ishanga with us and we noticed that his Nepal phone did not come active through the… if he had crossed over, his Nepal phone should have come active, it did not come. So, literally, the entire group was there in the building. So, this is a terrible and an extraordinary event which unfortunately has turned out this way. Well, we don't have any numbers as such but the overall numbers could be anywhere around 1500 plus and many of the Nepali guides were with us, their families were there. How many of them, we do not know yet but on that side is 484 and that's what they are saying. This side, there's absolutely no information but that town where we entered, almost half the town is carved out of the valley. So, it is said that some lake or river lake burst open. Some people in Nepal, some news channels are saying there was a 4.9 Richter earthquake about half an hour before. Other people are denying that. We don't know, there's no proper information and we should have been there the same time tomorrow morning. So, here we are. So, we're doing everything possible. We're still looking if we can… we're seeking permission through the Indian embassy and the Chinese embassy in India and the American embassy is working on this to see if they can permit me and a group of people to be there and see what we can do. After a long wait, it's already been nearly… because at nine o'clock, let's say, it's already nearly twelve hours. So, about half an hour ago, we've sent messages to all the families.