About 90 Americans unaccounted for after catastrophic floods hit Nepal and Tibet

McMINNVILLE, Tenn | U.S. officials said about 90 U.S. citizens remained unaccounted for Thursday, a day after catastrophic flash floods engulfed a border area of China and Nepal, killing hundreds of people. A spiritual organization said that 22 Americans associated with it were unaccounted for.

In a statement, the U.S. State Department said it is not aware of any U.S. deaths, but three Americans have been rescued.

Many of the missing were on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus, Buddhists and others.

Social media posts were surfacing Thursday from loved ones pleading for people to provide updates or circulate information about Americans they had lost contact with — a Virginia woman traveling with a tour group, a Texas couple on a birthday trip and a mother accompanying her 14-year-old daughter.

Ohio man missing

Among those on a guided tour was Venus Rajnikant Patel, a 45-year-old Indian-born U.S. citizen who recently moved from St. Louis to Cincinnati to help his family.

Patel’s brother, Dennis, said Venus called him and their parents a few hours before the floods, showing them his hotel room on the Nepalese side of the border and talking about how excited he was to cross into Tibet. He had been planning the pilgrimage for two years, his brother said.

Patel’s friend Jolene Gosha said she and her friends knew Patel was in Nepal and were devastated when they realized his hotel was right along the border where the floods swept through.

“We’re just hoping, hoping that by some chance he was able to climb his way out of it,” Gosha said. “I don’t want to give myself false hope because I know the reality is that he’s probably not with us.”

Gosha described Patel as an avid traveler who loves dancing and frequently organizes surprise “flash mob” performances for his friends’ weddings and birthdays.

“He’s always smiling from ear to ear,” Gosha said. “He’d dance so goofily and didn’t care who was watching.”

Long Island man described as ‘life of the party’

Another American who is missing is 72-year-old Jitendra Patel, a Long Island resident who was with a tour group on a Hindu pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, according to his son, Sunny Patel. Jitendra last called Wednesday morning local time on WhatsApp to say that he had crossed the border into Tibet.

When Sunny first saw video of the flooding he thought no one could survive it, Sunny said. He then contacted his mother to ask about his father’s whereabouts. His mother said Jitendra was in the exact same area as the flooding.

“My heart sank,” Sunny said, adding that he “didn’t think it was possible that my dad would be there at ground zero.”

Sunny described his father as the “life of the party” who loves playing golf and socializing. Jitendra is retired but drives Uber for fun because he can talk to people.

Sunny and his family are somber but “maybe hopeful,” Sunny said. But they haven’t heard from Jitendra. WhatsApp messages sent to him aren’t being delivered, Sunny said.

“It gets worse by every hour, obviously,” he added.

Indian spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev, also known as Sadhguru, said in a post on X that 77 people returning from Mount Kailash with groups organized by his Isha Foundation were at an immigration center in Gyirong, Tibet, when the floods struck. Leslie Crespi, a community liaison for the foundation’s U.S. campus, said that 22 of them were Americans affiliated with the foundation and that three volunteers supporting the trekkers were also at the immigration center when the floods hit.

“We had communication with the coordinator of the group at about 9:05 Nepalese time saying that they had arrived there. And then by 9:14 is when this flash flood hit,” Crespi said.

The trekkers were “like family,” Crespid said. And for many people that go on the treks to Nepal, it’s a “lifelong dream to go and be there,” she added.

The Isha Foundation is a spiritual organization based in India and its U.S. campus, the Isha Institute of Inner-sciences, is a yoga and meditation retreat center located in the mountains near McMinnville, Tennessee.

At a candlelight vigil in New York City on Thursday, Tak Ruwali, a Long Island resident who is from one of the Nepalese districts affected by the flooding, said that he is talking with people in Nepal and many regional tourist guides are “out of contact now.”

“It means they are probably gone,” Ruwali added.

Talking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, President Donald Trump said U.S. officials have spoken with Nepalese leaders and offered to provide “anything they want.”

Trump said there were 50 or 60 Americans in the area but added that a full accounting hasn’t been completed.

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Collin Binkley in Washington and Josh Kelety in Phoenix contributed to this report.