Every day since a torrent of mud and rocks destroyed a Nepal-China border crossing high up in the Himalayas last month, Arushi Gupta's parents have called and messaged their missing daughter hoping she somehow survived.
The last photo she sent on the day of the flood was the facade of the Gyirong Port immigration post. But the calls and messages from her parents, who are among many families in Nepal and abroad awaiting news of their loved ones, have gone unanswered.
The 33-year-old told her father on WhatsApp that she was 15 minutes from the border on the morning of 26 August, the day of the flood. She was preparing to cross from Nepal into Tibet on a pilgrimage to the Hindu holy site of Mount Kailash.
There are 5,130 people still reported missing on the Nepal side of the border after the flood caused by a glacial collapse swept down the mountains, killing at least 1,386 people. In China, at least 43 people were killed and 519 are missing, including many foreigners.
The search for the missing has led to a few remarkable rescues of people trapped in tunnels of Nepal's hydropower plants.
But the once regular flow of information about the rescue effort has slowed. Despite the uncertainty this vacuum leaves, some say it offers a sliver of hope that loved ones escaped.
“They haven't been confirmed dead,” said Vladyslava Horlova, a 22-year-old Ukrainian film student in Bergen, Norway whose mother is missing. “So I think that's a little hope to hold on to.”
Horlova's 42-year-old mother Elena also went missing around the border post as she travelled with a group of Ukrainians on a spiritual retreat. Along with Elena, 46 other Ukrainians on that trip remain missing, say representatives of the families.
Arushi, a consultant in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, had long planned a visit to Mount Kailash, which is believed by Hindus to be the eternal home of Lord Shiva.
Catching a flight on 23 August from New Delhi to Kathmandu, her parents dropped her off at the airport, snapping a photo that showed a smiling Arushi flanked by her mother and father.
In her last WhatsApp chat from the Gyirong border post, she told her father how a fellow traveller had forgotten his passport.
“Unexpected things can occur, and only patience is required,” she wrote.
Families of those on the pilgrimage formed a WhatsApp group with about 200 members to share information. Initially, they held regular evening calls to share updates.
The authorities in Nepal and China have said they are making every effort to coordinate, track down the missing and provide information to families as soon as possible. India also said it was working closely with the Chinese and Nepalese authorities.
But officials say the scale of the flood, which deposited 2.2 million tons of debris in the valleys, devastating infrastructure and settlements, has hampered the search.
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