Australian families are desperately searching for three missing men after catastrophic floods struck the Nepal-Tibet border region during a Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage, with relatives traveling to Kathmandu and coordinating with authorities while facing limited information and slow official response.
AI-generated summary
Six days after catastrophic floods struck the Nepal-Tibet border region, Australian families are searching for three missing men who were on a Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage with the tour company Kailash Journeys. The group of 26 foreign travelers included six Australians and was accompanied by five Nepali guides.
Jony Raval's phone does not stop ringing.
He has been in Kathmandu for just two hours, and already his family wants to know what he has found.
"I didn't come here to be a story," Jony says.
Jony has barely slept in a week.
His brother-in-law, Bhavinkumar Raval, is one of 38 Australians missing after catastrophic floods tore through the Nepal-Tibet border region.
Bhavinkumar had been heading to the sacred Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage with two close friends and fellow Australians, Karan Bhardwaj and Arpan Kothari.
Six days after the disaster, Jony left his home in Gujarat, India, and flew to Kathmandu to look for them himself.
Back in Brisbane, his sister, Aarti Raval, has spent almost every waking hour trying to work out where her husband was when the floods hit.
Australian family trawls the internet for clues
The mother-of-two has trawled photographs, videos and social media posts, searching for anything that might narrow down his last known location.
She tracked down a photograph of one of Bhavinkumar's fellow travellers, taken on the morning of the disaster. In it, the man is standing on a muddy road in a steep valley surrounded by lush green mountains.
Bhavinkumar was travelling with Kailash Journeys in a group of 26 foreign travellers, including six Australians and people from the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Malaysia, Canada and South Africa. They were accompanied by five Nepali guides and staff.
Aarti points to a statement from the tour company saying its last contact with the group was at 7:30am in Timure on the morning of the disaster.
Timure is about a 25-minute walk from the Gyirong immigration checkpoint, which was struck by the flooding roughly an hour later.
From that information, Aarti believes she has narrowed down the stretch of road where her husband may have been.
She pulls up coordinates on Google Maps.
The location is along the Pasang Lhamu Highway, hemmed in by dense forest and steep cliffs.
"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."
Every piece of information vital in search
For Aarti and other families, every fragment of information has become important.
They have spent the past week combing through videos from the disaster zone, survivor accounts, immigration records and lists of the missing and rescued, trying to reconstruct what happened.
Some of the material cannot be independently verified. But for families desperate for answers, even the smallest new detail can feel like a lifeline.
Aarti says she has passed her research to Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, but has been frustrated by the response.
"I'm not sure if they're even looking into my request because I am not feeling that I have been supported by them at all," she says.
She has also sent the information to Nepal Police, but says she has seen little movement.
"I had to send my brother from India to Kathmandu, and he is now at least looking for him," she says.
That is now Jony's task.
Armed with the information his sister has gathered, he plans to go first to the Kailash Journeys office in central Kathmandu, then to Nepal's immigration authorities and the Chinese embassy.
His most basic question is also one the family has been unable to answer: which side of the border were the three men on when the floods hit?
Jony says the lack of information from China has made the search harder.
Many relatives travel to Nepal to find answers themselves
The Australian government said its officials in Beijing and Canberra were "engaging with Chinese authorities".
"We have consistently sought further and updated information on what the Chinese authorities know of any Australians involved in this tragedy, and will continue to do so," it said.
The ABC understands Bhavinkumar Raval, Karan Bhardwaj and Arpan Kothari are not among the six Australians identified as unaccounted-for on the Chinese side of the border.
Jony is not the only relative who has come to Kathmandu looking for answers.
In recent days, other family members of missing Australians have arrived, including the husbands of Reshma Patel and Sumi Adhikari and relatives of the Iyer family.
Bhavin Patel told the ABC he would not leave Nepal without finding his wife.
Sumi Adhikari's husband, Rava Pandey, said he had "accepted the reality of what has happened" and would start final rituals on Thursday.
Several families have raised concerns about the speed and scale of the search during the crucial first days after the disaster.
About 1.6 million people affected by the disaster
The Nepali government also faced criticism after initially declining general offers of international search-and-rescue teams.
In an interview with the ABC, Nepal's minister for communication and information technology, Dr Bikram Timilsina, defended the government's response.
"During this kind of disaster there are so many friendly countries which have supported us and which also expressed their intention of working in the rescue zones," he said.
He said assistance was accepted once authorities determined where international help could be most useful.
At the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority in Kathmandu, officials are now running the emergency response from a central situation room.
Teams are mapping destruction, monitoring road closures and trying to determine where rescue teams and aid should be sent.
According to the disaster authority, 1.6 million people have been affected and thousands remain cut off from food and essential services.
Officials say helicopters are carrying out regular reconnaissance flights around the border region, but the scale of the destruction has made landing in some areas impossible.
Kailash Journeys says it has also been searching for the missing group. The company conducted its own helicopter reconnaissance flight on the day of the floods, checked hospitals and medical facilities and has been monitoring official lists and images of those found.
Families cling to hope their loved ones will return
But for Aarti, the search has taken on another painful turn.
On Wednesday, Australian Federal Police officers came to her home to collect DNA samples from her 13-year-old and eight-year-old sons.
"It was extremely hard to convince them what we are doing and why we are doing."
Neither is she.
Aarti says she wants Nepalese authorities to search every possible area around her husband's last known location.
"Send some troops inside those areas behind the immigration top hills and find those people."
"They are there. I'm genuinely saying they are there."
AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
Jony Raval will visit the Kailash Journeys office in Kathmandu, Nepal's immigration authorities, and the Chinese embassy to gather more information about the missing Australians.
Very likely · Within days
Australian Federal Police will process DNA samples from Aarti Raval's sons for potential matching with any recovered remains.
Very likely · Within weeks
Families will continue to pressure Australian and Nepali authorities for more aggressive search efforts in the border region.
Likely · Within weeks
ABC Investigations uncovered audio published by Russian state media RT, allegedly featuring Kira and Igor Korolev speaking from Queensland prisons about their espionage arrest, Australian life, and legal case. The couple, former Australian Army private and her husband, are awaiting trial on conspiracy to commit espionage charges carrying a life sentence. ABC could not verify the audio's authenticity, and Queensland Corrective Services confirmed no approval was given for media interviews with prisoners. Experts suggest the RT interviews aim to portray Australia negatively to Russian audiences, while the Korolevs may seek diplomatic or legal support. Their case involves allegations of accessing military accounts to transfer sensitive data to Russia, which they deny.
More than 900 workers linked to hydropower projects near Nepal's border with Tibet are feared trapped after flash floods destroyed 27 power stations, with rescuers focusing on underground structures where survivors may endure up to 17 days in air pockets.
Four more Australians have been confirmed safe following the Nepal-Tibet flood disaster, while 38 others remain unaccounted for as death tolls climb and families plead for international assistance.
A family of five in Trishuli, Nepal, survived a devastating flash flood by sheltering on the second floor of their reinforced concrete home while surrounding buildings collapsed, as the death toll from the disaster surpassed 1,000.
Former Bondi Rescue lifeguard and mental health advocate Matt Dee has died, prompting tributes from colleagues and the community. Dee co-founded the FTW Revolution brand to support suicide prevention.
Two 21-year-old tourists from Victoria were attacked by a feral buffalo while hiking the 13-kilometre trail to Butterfly Gorge in Nitmiluk National Park, Northern Territory. The buffalo pushed one tourist over before fleeing, leaving her with bruises and scratches. Other hikers assisted the pair, who plan to continue their Australia tour after recovering in Katherine. The region has hundreds of thousands of feral buffalo, managed through annual aerial removal programs.