Telugu NRI missing after flash floods on Nepal-Tibet border

A Qatar-based Telugu NRI, Chopparapu Rameshbabu, has gone missing after catastrophic flash floods struck the Nepal-Tibet border. His family in Andhra Pradesh and friends in Qatar are hoping he is alive as rescue teams continue searching the affected region.

Dubai: Prayer and hope, this is what Chopparapu Rameshbabu’s friends in Qatar and family back home in Andhra Pradesh are clinging to as they wait for their beloved one to return home safely.

Rameshbabu is among the Telugu NRIs who were on the pilgrimage to Mount Kailash-Manasarovara Yatra, the peak revered by Hindus and Buddhists as the abode of Lord Shiva, and are missing after catastrophic flash floods on the Nepal-Tibet border.

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The families, including the NRIs, are holding out hope that their missing loved ones will be found alive, as some members were found after the devastating flood. Each minute, a wife is waiting for her husband, and children are desperate to hear the phone ring of their father. In Qatar, his colleagues have been hoping to receive a message from him about the schedule of his vacation before the end of this week.

Rescue teams are still searching through the mud, with some holding on to the smallest hope that they may still be alive. The family holds the highest hope and strongly believes that Ramesh Babu lost his mobile phone in the mud, but he is still alive somewhere in no-man’s land in the Himalayas.

A software professional, Ramesh Babu, a native of Krishna district and long-time resident of Qatar, was waiting at the checkpoint in Rasuwa district on the Nepal-Tibet border when the flash flood that devastated parts of Nepal and Tibet struck last Wednesday.

His wife Sunita says a phone call went through to his number at 8:15 am local time, when the flash flood struck the border region, but Ramesh Babu did not pick up the call. Since then, his phone has been unreachable.