Hyderabad family’s agonising wait continues as Kailash Yatra trio remain missing after Nepal floods | Hyderabad News

Sridhar Avvari, along with his son Abhinav and wife Deepti in this picture taken before they embarked on their expedition

Hyderabad: As the death toll in the Nepal flash floods continues to rise, the family of Hyderabad-based NRI techie Sridhar Avvari is struggling to hold on to hope. Sridhar, his wife Deepti and their 14-year-old son Abhinav had travelled to Nepal with the S3 Isha group for the Kailash Mansarovar yatra. Their family in the city has been unable to contact them since the day of the calamity.“We were expecting a message from Sridhar and Deepti on Aug 26 as they were scheduled to return the next day. But there was no text. When we contacted them, their phones were unreachable. That’s when we grew concerned and reached out to Isha Foundation,” said Priyanka Rapaka, who is married to Deepti’s brother.She said the family of three had left their Kukatpally home on Aug 13 for the Kailash Mansarovar yatra.Panic set in when the Foundation, on the night of Aug 26, informed the family about the floods and said it too had been unable to establish contact with any member of the group.The family was also told that the trio were at the immigration centre on the Nepal-China border when the calamity struck. They had completed the Kailash Parikrama and were returning to Nepal.Since then, relatives have been piecing together information from people in the affected area. Priyanka said relatives in the US had been sharing whatever photographs and updates they received from Nepal.“My brother who is in the US has been visiting the Isha centre there and and giving us whatever information and photographs he is getting from Nepal. The Isha Coimbatore centre has not been able to help us with updates so much,” she said.Sridhar’s brothers, who also live in the US, arrived in Hyderabad on Tuesday to help with the search. His 70-year-old mother is also anxiously waiting for news of her son, daughter-in-law and grandson, Priyanka said.‘Nobody could imagine such a thing’Hyderabad: Another Hyderabad resident, Rajeshwari Pamidighantam, who travelled along the same route with a different group, told TOI she was part of the A3 group and had crossed the immigration point on Aug 22, four days before the floods. She returned to Hyderabad on Aug 24.Speaking to TOI on Tuesday, she said there had been no indication of what was to come when her group passed through the area.“Everything was absolutely normal when we crossed the centre on our onward and return journeys. There was nothing unusual that we noticed,” Rajeshwari said, still shaken by what has happened there since.She said there was strong water flow and waterfalls along the route, but nothing that suggested the scale of the disaster that followed. “Nobody could imagine or expect such a thing to happen in no time,” she added.Helplines:Telangana Bhavan: 9871999044, 9949351270, 9618597969Secretariat Control Room: S Lakshminarayana: 9885371189, K Srinivas Reddy: 7997959754, E Chittibabu: 9440854433