An Australian father is demanding answers as the search for his wife, who vanished in flash floods along the Nepal-Tibet border, nears its second week.
Newcastle father-of-two Bhavin Patel has tirelessly searched Nepal’s disaster zone for his missing wife, Reshma.
He has chartered a helicopter, tracked his wife’s phone signal and pleaded with governments of three countries for help, and is yet to find any trace.
“She is my life,” the father-of-two told AAP.
“I am not going without her.”
Mr Patel made the journey to Kathmandu in the days after a glacier collapse brought catastrophic flash flooding to towns and villages in the Himalayas.
His wife, a Sydney council worker, was returning from a two-week walking tour to a sacred mountain in Tibet when disaster struck on August 26.
She was one of several Australians travelling back to Kathmandu with the Isha Foundation when an immigration building was hit by the deluge.
On August 31, Mr Patel chartered a helicopter to fly to the site of the building, after surrounding roads were destroyed or else obscured.
From the air, Mr Patel saw exposed earth where the imposing civic structure had stood just days before, near the location of his wife’s last phone signal.
Though the floodwaters had receded, the pilot would not allow him to land, citing dangerous terrain.
“I felt like… if they give me permission to land, I might rescue her,” Mr Patel said.
Since returning to Kathmandu, Mr Patel has made daily visits to local authorities, sharing images and information he thinks may help with their searches.
The greatest obstacle to his own investigations, he said, is the lack of information from authorities, particularly across the Chinese-controlled Tibet border.
He wants Australia to press Beijing for greater co-operation.
“I can feel she’s alive, that she’s safe somewhere,” he said.
“Our government is trying, but it’s not enough.”
Almost 1400 people have died since the floods began, while almost 5000 remain missing, including 36 Australians.
A group of Australian families with missing loved ones released a statement on Sunday, calling for greater transparency from tour groups and authorities.
They expressed gratitude to the AFP and search teams working to find missing Australians, but criticised the Australian government for what they said was its failure to provide answers.
The federal government has sent a disaster assistance response team and other specialist resources to Kathmandu to assist with the search.
It has also committed $11 million to support the disaster response, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday was of national importance.
“This is now very much a race against time,” Mr Albanese told parliament.
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