Dubai Expat Survives Nepal Floods Friend Feared Dead: 'Our Last Selfie Was At Kailash'

[ Editor's Note : For the latest updates on the deadly flash flood along the Nepal-Tibet border, follow the Khaleej Times live blog.]

For 35-year-old Raj Mehta, the journey to Mount Kailash was supposed to be the culmination of a five-year dream. It was a spiritual pilgrimage he had longed to undertake with his close friend from Spain, only identified as GDA.

They joined the Isha Foundation's Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, a pilgrimage that draws thousands of devotees each year. But due to scheduling, they were placed in different groups. Raj was in a batch scheduled from August 15th to 29th, while his friend was in the S3 group, which started a day earlier on August 14th.

However, tragedy struck in the form of the flash floods and mudslides that engulfed the borders of China, Nepal and Tibet on August 26. The 77-member S3 group were in the Chinese immigration building at Gyirong Port to head towards Nepal, when the floods hit and have been labelled missing.

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Raj said that he still found it hard to believe how close he came to death. "This was the same building that I was going to be in in the next 24 hours," he told Khaleej Times, just hours after landing back in the UAE. "It was only because of the scheduling difference that I wasn't with the group in the building at the time."

The Gyirong Port area - the border between China and Nepal - was one of the worst hit. International media have reported that rescue crew had to hike 10 hours to get to the location. Others had to be helicoptered in. Over 1000 people have died in the flood caused by the collapse of a glacier and over 4000 have been reported missing.

Prior to the disaster, the journey was "amazing" according to Raj. For two nights and three days at Kailash, he and his fellow pilgrims shared moments of profound joy. "We were with the same batch, we were waking up, we were dancing, singing and we were doing a lot of things with the same batch.”

Raj, who had been given the responsibility of taking videos and photos for his group, captured images of laughter, dance and spiritual celebration. Little did he know these would become cherished memories of people he would never see again.

"We had our last moments there. We had our last selfie also over there with Kailash," he said.

On August 26, Raj was in the city of Saga, waiting to move towards Gyirong, when he noticed something was wrong. His friend had been texting him that morning as her group made their way toward the Chinese immigration building at the border. Then, suddenly, the messages stopped.

"We were just messaging each other on WhatsApp and then after some time, I was getting only single ticks,” he said.“There were no double ticks."

At the same time, Raj noticed their group was not moving as scheduled. Local guides were watching videos on their phones showing catastrophic floods in Nepal. When Raj finally managed to access social media, he saw the horrifying footage - the Chinese immigration building, the very structure he had passed through just a week earlier, completely destroyed by landslide debris.

"That's when I knew that there's a good possibility that they were crossing that same building," he said. "That got me very much worried."

In the hours that followed, Raj desperately tried to reach anyone who could tell him what had happened to the group. It was only when he spoke to an official at Sadhguru's office that he received the devastating confirmation - all members of the S3 group were missing.

For the next few days, Raj and his fellow pilgrims found themselves trapped in Tibet. The Chinese authorities refused to let them move through the destroyed border crossing. With no other port available, they were stuck at Saga, unable to return to Nepal.

The journey back was agonising. At the border, they were questioned by Chinese officials and spent seven hours making a journey that would have normally taken one hour. They finally crossed over into Nepal.

When he was back in Kathmandu, Raj tried to use his friend's MacBook to track the group's last location, hoping to help rescuers find them. Instead, he discovered their location using a Nepal SIM card Raj had bought for his friend before the trip began.

"Right now their location is showing under a lot of rubble, that is of like 10 or 20 feet down there," he explained. "On top of that, there's a lot of debris, rubbles and boulders and all this mud and water."

What haunts Raj most, however, is not the loss itself. "In my mind, the only thought I have is - what were the last moments of these people? What they were feeling at that last moment?" he confessed. "For me, that is far more important because I want to understand how, what they went through. That would give me a closure."

Sadhguru, the founder of Isha Foundation, personally met with the families who had lost loved ones. "He assured us that his support will be always with us," Raj shared.

His friend's mother is struggling to cope with the loss, he said, while her two brothers are managing as best they can. For himself, Raj says he has found a measure of peace in the reassurance that Sadhguru offered.

The recovery operation continues at the site, with Chinese authorities bringing in heavy equipment to drill through the debris. Raj estimates it may take another 10 to 15 days to recover the mortal remains of those lost. For now, he holds onto the memories of laughter, dance and love shared in the shadow of the sacred mountain.

Explained: What triggered the catastrophic flood on Nepal-Tibet border? Nepal says flood death toll rises to 1,050, with total killed now 1,066 'I am just praying': UAE's Nepalese expats in shock after floods wreak havoc back home

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