Hope Still Held for Japanese Family A Week after Nepal Floods

Kathmandu/Beijing, Sept. 1 (Jiji Press)–A Japanese family of five remains missing after flash floods and mudslides struck the Nepal-China border last week, but a local tour company employee has not given up hope to find them safe. While Wednesday will mark a week since the disaster, the employee who oversaw the family’s tour said Monday that he cannot lose hope that all five are safe. Nepal’s tourism authorities on Tuesday released the five people’s dates of birth. Two of them, in their 40s, are the parents of the other three, aged 10, 6 and 3. Nepal’s disaster management authorities said the same day that the death toll in Nepal has risen to 987, bringing the combined fatalities on both sides of the border to more than 1,000. In China, 16 have been confirmed dead. A total of over 4,400 people remain missing in the two countries. The catastrophe devastated broad stretches downstream in Nepal. On the Chinese side, border checkpoints and other facilities were swept away and severely damaged. The disaster is believed to have been triggered by the collapse of an upstream glacier. Search and rescue operations remain difficult, and authorities are expected to need more time to determine the full extent of the damage. The Japanese family entered Nepal from China’s Tibet Autonomous Region on the morning of Wednesday last week, according to the tour company staff member. The parents and their children went unaccounted for soon after the company’s driver contacted him to say he joined the family. The staff member visited numerous hospitals in search for the family and the driver, and traveled three times to Nuwakot district in central Nepal, one of the areas hit by the disaster. No clues have been found, however, and roads farther upstream near the border remain closed, preventing access to the area. He said the company has remained in close contact with the Japanese Embassy in Kathmandu. The family was scheduled to stay for two nights from Wednesday at a hotel near the international airport in the Nepalese capital. “We hope that they will be safe,” a hotel employee said Monday, adding that the hotel has no detailed information about the family’s travel plans. Osaka Prefecture and the city of Osaka, the capital of the western Japan prefecture, said Tuesday that one of the parents is believed to be a teacher at a school operated by the prefecture and two of the three children are thought to be pupils at an elementary school run by the city. The teacher filed a travel notification before departing for Nepal but has been unreachable. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]