Nepal-Tibet floods leave hundreds missing, including 65 Americans

A New York couple traveling to Mount Kailash is among 65 Americans missing after a catastrophic flood along the Nepal-Tibet border.

The last time Radhika Sharma heard from her parents, they had just crossed from Nepal into Tibet.

Ramesh Sharma, 65, and Neelam Sharma, 64, who live in New York and are U.S. citizens, were making a religious pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a peak in Tibet considered sacred by Hindus, Buddhists and other faiths. Shortly after their border crossing Wednesday, a towering torrent of water, rock and mud tore through the same Himalayan corridor.

Videos from the hardest-hit border regions showed people running as the debris flow swallowed buildings and vehicles, devastated towns and settlements, and severed roads, power and communications. The suspected collapse of a melting glacier shook the ground so violently that seismic monitors initially registered it as a magnitude-4.4 earthquake.

In one video from Mailung, in Nepal’s Rasuwa region, a group of construction workers was seen walking down a mountain path before noticing giant plumes of brown debris in the distance, rapidly cascading toward them. The men reversed course to flee uphill, one briefly stopping to film before realizing the scale of the danger.

Destruction along the swollen Trishuli River in Nuwakot, Nepal, on Wednesday following a massive flash flood.Skanda Gautam / SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty ImagesHe shouts in Nepali: “Oh, my God, the flood is getting so big! Let’s run — run fast, guys! Oh, my God, get back quickly!”