Australians launch their own searches for relatives missing in Nepal

Jony Raval had been in Kathmandu for only two hours when his phone began ringing constantly. His family wanted to know what he had found. He had barely slept in a week, but six days after catastrophic floods struck the Nepal-Tibet border region, he left his home in Gujarat, India, and flew to Nepal to search for his missing brother-in-law.

“I didn’t come here to be a story. I came here to fulfil a promise to my sister. That I won’t leave here without her husband,” Raval said.

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I didn’t come here to be a story. I came here to fulfil a promise to my sister. That I won’t leave here without her husband.

Bhavinkumar Raval was traveling to the sacred Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage with two friends and fellow Australians, Karan Bhardwaj and Arpan Kothari. They were part of a Kailash Journeys group of 26 foreign travelers, including six Australians, accompanied by five Nepali guides and staff. The group’s last contact came at 7:30 a.m. in Timure on the morning of the disaster, according to the tour company. Timure is about a 25-minute walk from the Gyirong immigration checkpoint, which flooding struck roughly an hour later.

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Bhavin is still somewhere in that mud area just above the immigration office and no rescue search has been going there.

In Brisbane, Bhavinkumar’s wife, Aarti Raval, has spent almost every waking hour searching for clues. She has combed through photographs, videos, social media posts, survivor accounts, immigration records and lists of missing people. A photograph taken that morning shows one of the travelers standing on a muddy road in a steep valley surrounded by green mountains. By comparing the available information, Aarti believes she has narrowed the group’s possible location to the Pasang Lhamu Highway, where flash floods washed away the road.

“Bhavin is still somewhere in that mud area just above the immigration office and no rescue search has been going there,” she said. “All I want is someone to go through helicopter, drop some people inside the bush area and go and find those people who are stuck in the mud. I’m sure they are there and still breathing.”

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All I want is someone to go through helicopter, drop some people inside the bush area and go and find those people who are stuck in the mud. I’m sure they are there and still breathing.