A New York teenager and mother are among 90 Americans missing in Nepal as families desperately search for answers

Over 90 Americans Unaccounted for After Glacial Flood Wipes Out Villages Along Nepal-China Border

Healfromzero.com – More than 1,300 people remain missing and hundreds have been confirmed dead following a catastrophic glacial collapse and subsequent flood that tore through steep mountain gorges straddling the Nepal-China border on Wednesday. Among the unaccounted-for travelers are at least 90 American citizens, according to the State Department, which confirmed the figure in a statement issued Thursday. The disaster, triggered when a massive section of glacier sheared free of the mountainside at approximately 8:37 a.m. local time, sent a wall of ice, rock, and water cascading downstream along a river valley, obliterating entire settlements and severing all communications in the affected corridor.

President Donald Trump characterized the event as a “terrible” disaster and stated that the United States stands ready to dispatch “any help” Nepal requires. International relief organizations and allied governments have begun moving aid, medical supplies, and search-and-rescue teams toward the region, though access remains severely constrained by ongoing rainfall, deep mud, and widespread structural wreckage.

A New York Family’s Race Against Time

In Mumbai, Shekhar Agrawal has spent the past two days dialing phone number after phone number, hoping to reach his sister or her teenage daughter. Rekha Shashidharan, 54, and her daughter Rashi, 14, both residents of New York, have been unreachable since Wednesday morning. Agrawal, speaking from the Indian financial capital, described the urgency of the situation with raw, unfiltered anxiety.

“This is the crucial golden hour,” he said. “The next two to three days will be critical for quick action to find those injured or missing.”

He urged authorities to share whatever information they possess with families without delay. He flipped through photographs of his sister and niece, describing a mother in a pink head covering and her daughter in a forest-green shirt and jeans, seated cross-legged on a temple floor.

“This is Rashi enjoying her temple visit,” Agrawal said, holding up one of the images.

The pair had spent several days in Kathmandu acclimating to Himalayan altitude before joining a tour group heading north toward the Chinese border. Agrawal’s last conversation with them came around 7:30 a.m. local time on Wednesday. Their itinerary called for a visit to the immigration checkpoint around noon, after which they intended to cross into Tibet. Just over an hour after that final exchange, the glacier failed.

“After that, there was radio silence, nothing, no contact whatsoever,” Agrawal said.

He believes the mother and daughter may still have been at their hotel when the flood struck. The affected region has lost electrical power and all telecommunications, and rescuers report being hampered by relentless rain, saturated terrain, and debris fields. It remains unclear how many of the missing individuals survived but simply lack any means to signal the outside world.

Pilgrims on a Sacred Route

A significant share of the foreign travelers caught in the disaster were religious pilgrims, drawn from the South Asian diaspora across the globe. Many had saved for months or years to fund the journey, following a traditional route through Nepal’s northern passes into Tibet and ultimately to Mount Kailash, a peak revered in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Bon. The pilgrimage draws devotees from dozens of countries, and the 31 nationalities represented among the missing include the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.

Stories emerging from frantic family members in the past two days underscore how personal and aspirational these trips were. One missing American couple consisted of retirees who undertook the pilgrimage after their adult children urged them to travel and, in their words, “go live life” after decades of work. Another couple from Texas had planned the journey to mark the husband’s 60th birthday, which his children called a “bucket list dream.”

For the Shashidharans, too, the trip carried that weight. Rashi, an eighth grader, had originally intended to complete the Hindu pilgrimage alone and was, by her uncle’s account, “very excited.” Her mother ultimately decided to accompany her so the teenager would not travel solo through remote mountain terrain.

Rescue Efforts and Government Response

Dozens of missing foreign nationals were pulled to safety on Thursday, and rescue crews continue searching feverishly for survivors amid the wreckage. State Department officials confirmed that at least three Americans had been safely recovered as of Thursday, while 90 remained unaccounted for. Trump acknowledged that dozens of Americans were missing but said he had not yet received the complete roster.

Agrawal and countless other family members around the world are left in a state of suspended dread, working through lists of phone numbers supplied by friends, television broadcasts, and internet forums, attempting to reach anyone who might have seen or heard from their loved ones.

“Whatever (phone) numbers the internet or television or friends are giving us, we are trying to contact them,” he said.

Many of the numbers circulating for those seeking information have proven unreachable, compounding the anguish of families who cannot confirm whether their relatives are alive, injured, or gone. Until communications infrastructure is restored and search teams can penetrate the most damaged stretches of the river valley, the full human toll of the disaster will remain unknown.