According to reports updated on August 30, 2026, twenty-one pilgrims returning from a mountain road near the Nepal-Tibet border reached Chennai on Friday night after surviving floodwaters and falling boulders. The survivors endured a perilous escape that required scrambling from their bus, climbing through thick mud and thorny undergrowth, and spending a day and a half waiting for evacuation.
Narrow Escapes and Dramatic Mountain Climbs Near the Border
The 57-person contingent from Tamil Nadu was traveling through Rasuwa in three buses arranged by a Kumbakonam-based agency when disaster struck. According to Navu Kabirdas and his wife, Vijaya Bhuvaneswari, residents of Murugu Nagar in Velachery, their bus was the second in the convoy and had briefly stopped for repairs after getting stuck in mud. Bhuvaneswari noted that those few minutes ultimately saved them.
“Suddenly, we heard a loud noise like a bomb explosion, and stones began falling on the van,” Kabirdas said, describing the onset of the disaster. “Then the floodwater came rushing in as though a dam had been opened.”
Their Nepalese driver recognized the impending danger, ordered everyone to get out and run upward, and fled the vehicle. Passengers followed, scaling a muddy rise approximately one storey high while repeatedly slipping and falling. Poongodi, a member of the group who reached the top first, put on a sweater, removed her saree, and lowered it down to assist the others.
“We held tightly on to both the saree and a cable that was there and climbed up,” Bhuvaneswari said. “Finally, one woman alone was unable to climb. We told her to tie the saree around her waist, and the people in our group held on to it and lifted her straight up.”
Tsunami-Like Waves and Hazardous Trekking to Safety
Sathya, a Panchayat Union School headmistress from Kanchipuram district, recalled that her group had left Syabrubesi at 8 am to head toward Chinese immigration. Their bus was positioned in the middle of the convoy when they spotted what initially appeared to be a cloud of dust.
“Rocks and mud were rolling towards us like a tsunami wave, rising to a height of about 70 to 80 feet,” Sathya said. “We had seen things like this only in English films.”
Escaping through the driver’s side with mud already above their ankles, the pilgrims found no established path up the mountain. Sathya noted that climbing four feet often resulted in sliding down five feet. After reaching an Armed Police Force camp, the group received water and biscuits and used remaining cellphone signals to transmit a safety proof photo to Tamil Nadu. They also alerted rescue personnel to a man trapped in the mud, who was subsequently saved.
The following day, the pilgrims walked for three hours through thorny bushes and narrow mountain paths to reach a helicopter evacuation point. “If we made a mistake, we would fall 50 feet below,” Kabirdas said, adding that a Nepalese man guided them when they initially took a wrong turn.
Missing Passengers and Ongoing Government Coordination
While 21 survivors made it back to Chennai via Kathmandu and New Delhi, thirty-six passengers from the same 57-member contingent remained unreachable on Saturday. Additionally, a separate 49-member group from Chennai—last reported inside the Gyirong Port immigration building on the Chinese side just before Wednesday’s flood—remained missing.
Tamil Nadu Minister A Rajmohan stated that more than 400 people from the state had traveled to Nepal, with 90 remaining unreachable. Officials have not yet released a breakdown reconciling that broader figure with the 85 missing individuals from the two identified contingents. Following instructions from Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, state ministers Aadhav Arjuna, Rajmohan, K Thennarasu, and R Vinoth have established a camp in New Delhi to coordinate ongoing rescue and assistance operations for survivors who lost passports and other critical documents.
Keep reading