It was Wednesday morning and one group of foreign pilgrims was staying at the Hotel Kailash, in a small border town in northern Nepal, getting ready for breakfast.
asserted
group → stay → breakfast
Around the same time, a few hundred metres further away, across the border, another group was set to go through immigration controls after returning from their religious pilgrimage in Tibet.
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group → set → Tibet
Within minutes, a gigantic wave of mud several storeys high barrelled through the area, pulverizing buildings and sweeping away bridges and vehicles.
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wave → barrel → bridges
Members of both groups, including a total of 22 people from Canada, remained unaccounted for.
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Members → include → Canada
Rescuers are searching for around 1,500 people after a torrent, likely caused by a glacial collapse, smashed through a river valley on the mountainous border of Nepal and China.
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torrent → search → Nepal
The missing included dozens from Canada, who joined scores of other pilgrims on a spiritual journey to see the sacred sites of Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar in Tibet.
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who → miss → Tibet
“Given the extremely difficult circumstances on the ground, [the number of missing] may fluctuate as new information comes in,” Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said in a statement.
uncertain
Anand → give → statement
At least 25 people from Canada are part of the 540 foreign nationals missing in Nepal, according to the local tourism authority.
uncertain
people → miss → authority
The death toll in the country reached 469, police said on Friday
The adventure-travel company Himalayan Glacier told The Globe and Mail that their missing clients included 10 from Canada.
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clients → reach → Canada
They were staying at the Hotel Kailash near the Rasuwagadhi crossing, on the Nepali side of the border.
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They → stay → border
Somali Raturi spoke over a video call Tuesday with two of her friends – Himanshu Agarwal, a resident of Oakville, Ont., and Poonam Dilipkumar Thakkar, a Canadian citizen living in Chicago – who were part of the Glacier tour group.
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who → speak → group
Ms. Raturi said their itinerary for Wednesday called for the group to be eating breakfast around the time of the flash flooding.
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group → say → flooding
She hasn’t heard from them since, and her friends are among those listed by Nepal police as missing.
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friends → hear → police
“We’re hearing different messages.
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We → hear → messages
Because nobody has a clue what’s going on right now on the ground,” she said.
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she → have → ground
Meanwhile, 12 religious pilgrims from Canada were among a group of 80 travellers who arrived at an immigration-control building on the Tibet-Nepal border when the flooding washed away the facility, organizers of the trip say.
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organizers → arrive → trip
The group was travelling with the India-based Isha Foundation and had reached the immigration centre at Tibet’s Gyirong Port on Wednesday morning.
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group → travel → morning
The building is now gone, and there has been no contact with the group, Isha’s spiritual leader, Jaggi Vasudev, who is known as Sadhguru, said in a video posted to his Instagram account.
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who → go → account
But looking at the scale of destruction, it looks bad,” Sadhguru said in the video, while people could be heard sobbing in the background.
uncertain
people → look → background
“The same building where we were for the immigration just a week ago – that entire building is washed away.
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building → wash → immigration
And part of the town is washed away.”
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part → wash → town
The group leader had sent a message at 9:05 a.m. to inform organizers that the pilgrims had arrived at immigration control, just before the flood struck.
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flood → send → control
Sadhguru feared that the pilgrims had not made it through the border in time.
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pilgrims → fear → time
“If he had crossed over, his Nepal phone should have become active.”
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phone → cross → ?
The Isha Foundation leader tried unsuccessfully to reach the site of the disaster to find out more.
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leader → try → more
Roads are blocked.
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Roads → block → ?
We’re unable to go there.”
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We → ’re → ?
The foundation sent an e-mail to Ms. Grover, she said, informing her that her parents were at a border office when the flood happened.
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flood → send → office
Graphic content: Dramatic CCTV video shows massive destruction from a landslide that swept through the China-Nepal border.
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that → show → border
Living in Toronto, both of Ms. Grover’s parents, an elementary-school teacher and an accountant, are deeply involved in their faith, volunteering at a temple and following the teachings of Sadhguru.
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both → live → Sadhguru
Her parents, Samira and Anil Grover, are religious and haven’t spent much time “doing things for themselves,” Ms. Grover said.
“They were really excited to do something for the first time for themselves, to just explore and go out and be able to be surrounded by other religious people,” she said.
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she → spend → people
“My mom, especially, was a really big fan of Sadhguru, and it was kind of always her dream to see him and go on this trip,” Ms. Grover said.
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Grover → see → trip
For those from the Glacier group at the Hotel Kailash, the pilgrimage was also meant to be a unique life experience.
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pilgrimage → mean → Kailash
Ms. Thakkar, who is asthmatic, had been training for the high-altitude trek by hiking around the Chicago area, said her sister, Bhumika Sachdev.
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sister → train → area
They last spoke on the phone on Tuesday.
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They → speak → Tuesday
Ms. Raturi had been planning the trip with Ms. Thakkar and Mr. Agarwal for the past year before dropping out of the trip because of an injury.
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Raturi → plan → injury
She said Mr. Agarwal is married with two daughters.
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Agarwal → say → daughters
In Surrey, B.C., Raju Bhattrai, president of the Nepal Cultural Society of B.C., said his organization has spent the past two days frantically helping organize fundraising for relief efforts.
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organization → say → efforts
He said news of the devastation has hit the community hard, triggering memories of previous recent disasters including a massive 2015 earthquake that killed more than 8,000 people across the region.
“It feels exactly like 2015 right now for us,” Mr. Bhattrai said.
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Bhattrai → say → us
The Aporia
